Dee's Story
by Gauss
Summary: The story of the baseball player in Chosen, and the woman she would become. First Fic, so reviews appreciated. Completed Sept. 2, '03
1. Called

Disclaimer: I don't own Buffy, her universe or any of the characters or places associated with it.  Those, as far as I know, are still the sole property of Joss Whedon.  Dee, on the other hand, is mine, at least beyond the ten seconds of screen time that Mr. Whedon gave her in "Chosen."  She struck me as someone with a story that needed telling.

Chapter 1.

Dee loved baseball.  She could pitch a ball faster and more accurately than anybody she'd ever known.  A regular William Tell, her father had called her.  Probably because she'd practiced by knocking apples off of her little sister, April's head with her fastball.  Her sister, being as ballsy as she was, had dutifully stood thirty feet in front of her in their back yard and allowed Dee to hurl baseballs at her as hard as she could.

She'd had to change her practice methods when she missed once.  April wasn't as forthcoming to volunteer as a target after that.

Batting, on the other hand, she hated.  She was pretty sure that she could count the number of times she'd made contact with the ball, much less hit it any great distance on one of her hands.  The strange thing was she could watch the pitcher and know before the ball left her hand what kind of pitch it was and where it was going to go.  But for some reason she couldn't put the bat there to interrupt its trajectory.  It was just moving too fast.

She was always nervous at the plate, and she'd never been able to hide it.  Actually, she'd never really been able to hide any emotion.  They seemed to have made permanent residence on her sleeve.

The pitcher (Dee couldn't quite remember her name; Tracy somethingorother) wound up and hurled the ball at her.

_Fastball_, Dee's mind dutifully registered, _low and far away_.  The pitcher liked fastballs.  Probably because she could throw them so fast.  Just watching the game, she had seen her throw about ninety fastballs out of just over a hundred pitches.

The high-pitched whistle of the ball screaming past her just above her knees was nearly drowned out by the heavier, slower _whoosh_ of the bat a fraction of a second later.

Or, more accurately, a fraction of a second too late.

It was disappointing, but not terribly surprising.

_Smack!_  The sound of the ball slamming into the leather of the catcher's mitt was deafening.

Literally.

It was as though a spike had been driven through her eardrums, sending white-hot bolts of pain through her.

"Strike one!"  The umpire's voice, normally loud and confident sounded dull and tinny.  It was as though she was hearing him through one of those tin can telephones she'd made when she was younger.

thump-_THUMP_.....  thump-_THUMP..... thump-__THUMP_

The slow, rhythmic thumping, like the beating of a distant drum insistantly drilled it's way into her consciousness.

thump-_THUMP_.....  thump-_THUMP..... thump-__THUMP_

Her eyes quickly scanned the spectators.  Every once in a while, one or two would bring along a drum.  She saw none.

thump-_THUMP_.....  thump-_THUMP..... thump-__THUMP_

It took a moment to realize that she was hearing the steady beating of her own heart.  It was beating so slowly, she hadn't realized...  That seemed a little odd to her.  She was nervous.  Shouldn't her heart be pounding faster?

The sound of a second heartbeat superimposed itself over hers, followed by a third and a fourth.

The catcher pulled back and punched her in the stomach.

Or at least, that's what it felt like.  The air was released from her lungs in a rush, and a tsunami of nausea rolled over her.  She could feel every muscle in her body tensing, as though bracing itself for some kind of impact.

Dee had never been electrocuted, but she imagined that it must feel something like this.  It was as though she were immersed in a bath of pure energy.  She could feel it surging through her, relentlessly, almost angrily.  It raced from her chest out to her fingertips.  She felt her back arch as, like a hungry wolf, clawing and scratching, it spread down towards her waist, and down her legs.

Then, just as quickly as... whatever it was... had grabbed her, it let her go.  She felt her knees buckle under her weight as she fought to get control over her breathing.  Finally, gravity won out, and she collapsed to the ground.

"Are you alright?"  She wasn't sure exactly how the umpire came to be standing over her, but his voice still sounded a little weird.  Slow, drawn out.  It was like a tape player whose batteries were running out.  "Do you have eiplepsy?"

"Epilepsy?  N-no."  Her voice sounded weird too.  Whatever had just hit her, she was still feeling the effects.  She could hear footsteps off to her right, then she was looking up at the concerned face of her coach.

"Dee?  Are you okay?  Do you want to sit down for a second?"

"Sit...?  No.  I'm okay.  Just a little hot is all.  I'm fine."

"You're sure?"

Dee nodded, finally bringing her breathing under control.

"That's my girl.  Okay, show 'em how it's done."

The coach helped Dee stand up and brushed the red dirt off of her uniform.  She stepped back up to the plate.

"Play ball!"  The umpire called out.

The pitcher didn't waste any time, and hurled the ball at the tiny brunette.

_Fastball.__  High and close.  Her mind again called out the pitch before the ball had left the pitcher's hand._

Long, long before.

The pitcher, Tracy, or whatever her name was, was moving painfully slowly.  The ball itself spun lazily towards her.  It was no longer the white streak it had been for the previous pitch.  Dee could see the individual threads on the ball as it rocketed towards the plate.

_What's happening?_  She wondered, _has the world slowed down, or have I sped up?_

Again, she heard the smack as the ball slammed into the catcher's mitt.  She realized that the only reason she hadn't hit it was because she'd forgotten to swing.  She could have, though.  It was moving so slowly.

"Strike two!"

She could do this.  She never could before, but she could now, and she knew it.

As she watched the pitcher wind up again, a small smile spread across her face.


	2. Ascending

Disclaimer:  I still don't own Buffy, her universe, or any of the characters or places associated with it; as much as I wish I did.  They are still the creation and property of Joss Whedon.

Chapter 2:

_Thirteen years later_.

Somehow, when her project manager had told (or more accurately, ordered) her to take a few days off, to go out and do something fun for a few days, Dee doubted that this was what he'd had in mind.

Actually, her project manager was a nice guy, but a bit of a stick in the mud.  For some reason, free-climbing Castleton Tower in Utah just didn't strike him as a fun thing to do.

To be fair, it _was_ a long way down.  Over three hundred feet at the top.  She'd climbed it on a couple of occasions before, and it was by far her favorite route to climb.

These days, she didn't get out very often.  Her work had a way of keeping her busy.  She'd been lucky enough to be hired as a programmer by one of the smaller IT firms in San Diego straight after her graduation from UCLA.  The pay was good, and took a large bite out of the huge debt load she'd incurred during her four years of college.

She returned her attention to the sheer rock face in front of her.  She was only supposed to take a couple of days off.  She had the feeling that her manager would be somewhat distressed if she came back dead.

It was hot.  No clouds hung in the sky to hold the sun at bay, and on a sheer wall, it was like standing on the side of an oven.  _Oh well, Dee thought to herself, __at least if I fall, I'll die with a great tan.  She balanced lightly on the inside edge of her right foot, and swung her left up into a small pocket.  Then, in a swift, smooth motion, she pulled herself a couple of feet higher on the wall._

Nobody else was climbing today.  It was unusual for the Tower to be deserted, as it was a fairly popular spot for those brave, stupid or crazy enough to try it.  The fact that it was deserted didn't bother her.  Actually, she kinda liked the solitude.  It allowed her to reflect on her own thoughts, concentrate on herself.  And that way, if she screwed up, she knew that it was nobody's fault but her own.

She dipped her hands into the chalk bag hanging on her waist.  Another couple of hours and she'd be standing at the top.  She was about a hundred feet from the summit, and directly above her, she could see a pair of buzzards (or, as she liked to call them, skeptics) circling. 

"Sorry guys," she muttered to them, "No lunch for you today, if I have anything to say about it."

She felt, rather than heard or saw the buzzard swooping down to strike  As if possessed, she found herself letting go of the rock face in front of her, to drop and desperately grab for a handhold about five feet below her.  She heard a sickening crunch as it slammed into the space her ribcage had just vacated, causing the rock under it to crumble, and sending a shower of large stones down upon her.

"Oh, come on, guys, I was just kid-…"  The quip died on her lips as she finally got a good look at her attacker.

It was, to be certain, no buzzard.

But that was about as much as she knew.  She knew what it wasn't: it wasn't anything she'd ever seen before.  What she didn't know was what it was.

The _thing_ had the general body shape of a man.  Arms, legs, eyes, ears… all were identifiable, if somewhat weird-looking.  Its skin was scarred and wrinkled, and each of its four limbs terminated in a four-fingered claw.  From behind its shoulders stretched two long, leathery, bat-like wings.

And it looked really, really pissed off.

As she watched the _thing_ circle around for a second pass, Dee desperately scanned the rock face she was suddenly precariously perched on, searching for some way to escape whatever had decided to come after her.  Whatever it was, it was big, and strong, and it didn't like her.  Not only that, but it had the advantage here.  Dee didn't allow herself to dwell upon what she'd done to get it so pissed off.  Whatever it was, she promised herself that she'd apologize profusely if she lived through this.

For now, she had to figure out a way of living through this.  She was a good two hundred feet off the ground, which ruled out jumping.  If it could fly, she couldn't really fight the _thing on its own turf.  Not to mention that she didn't have any weapons of any kind on her.  She was now regretting not having taken that Tae Kwon Do course they were offering at the Y._

How fast could she climb down?  It had taken her about four hours to get up this far, how fast could she descend if she didn't bother being careful about it?  It would take an hour, at the absolute least.  And even then, it was unlikely at best that she would make it in one piece.

The only upside to all this that she could think of was that this _thing_ had wasted the element of surprise.  More by dumb luck than anything else, she'd somehow known that he was coming.  Now she was ready.

Of course, being ready means Jack squat when you don't have anything you can actually do about it.

The _thing_ clawed, literally, for altitude, then all but folded its wings and dove straight down at her, trying to drive her off the wall by the sheer force of impact.

Dee waited until what she perceived to be the last possible moment, then shifted her weight to her right and pulled her whole body as much to one side as she possibly could.  She swore she could feel the whole wall shake with the impact, but she stayed, clinging desperately onto some of the tiny protrusions on the otherwise sheer wall.  Without thinking of it, she drew her left knee up to her chest, and kicked out, catching the _thing in its side, just below whatever it had that passed for a ribcage._

_How the hell did I do that?_

The force of the blow was sufficient to propel the _thing a good ten or twelve feet before it managed to slow itself down enough to hover._

_How the hell did I do _that?

The thing, whatever it was, must have weighed twice as much as she did.  How could she generate that much force?  It scared her how effortless it was.  On some level, she knew how to fight this thing, and had the strength to do it.

The _thing_, for its part, let out an angry screech and came in for another attack.  It brought its claws to bear and started lashing brutally at her arms and body.  It had, apparently, given up on trying to make it look like an accident, if that was ever its intention.  It just wanted her dead.  It didn't seem to care how she got that way.

Dee ducked a pair of blows which landed where her head had been, and had sufficient force to drive the _thing's claws deep into the rock, crumbling it effortlessly, and again showering the tiny brunette with fragments of rock._

Dee put her right hand behind her back, catching a small, flat, sharp rock which fit comfortably into the palm of her hand.  She then hung by her left and kicked out to the center of the _thing_'s chest with both feet.

"Head's up."

She hurled the rock as hard as she could, catching the _thing_ in the center of its forehead.

For the briefest of instants, it appeared to hang in space, waiting for gravity to reclaim it.  Almost lazily, it looked over at her, showing a small, rock-sized hole in his forehead.  Then its wings folded, and it plummeted earthwards.

It took just over an hour for Dee to climb down.  She hunted for a body, but never found one.

_Okay, _she thought to herself, _what the hell's going on here?_


	3. Revelations

Disclaimer: I still don't own Buffy, Her universe, or any of the places or people associated with it (although if he sets a price I can afford, I _am_ willing to buy 'em off of Mr. Whedon, but I'm not holding my breath for that one).

Chapter 3

"Dee?  You got a minute?"  Anders' voice slipped softly into Dee's attention as she worked at her computer the following day.  Anders, as far as Dee knew, had been living in California for almost five years after moving away from his native London.  The stiff, British accent which Dee knew he must have started with had all but faded.    He'd been her project manager for close to a year, ever since she'd started working with the firm.  He was nice enough, if a little stiff.

"Hmm?"  Dee had a little trouble getting out of work-mode.  When she was focused, you could damn near detonate a bomb next to her and she probably wouldn't notice.

"Lemme rephrase that: You've got a minute.  Daniel wants to talk to you."

"Daniel…"

"As in the guy who owns the company."

"Oh."  She stood up.  This, suffice it to say, was odd.  This was, admittedly, a small company: fewer than a hundred employees in total, but she'd never actually met the guy in charge.  Actually, she'd never even heard him referred to by his first name either.  To have him calling one employee into his office was unheard of.  "Any idea what he wants to talk about?"

"Oh, I think he just wants to meet you."

"Me?  Why?"

"How was your weekend?"  He asked.

"Change the subject, why don't you?  Why does he want to talk to me?"  She persisted.

"Why do you assume he tells me these things?"  Anders asked.

"How about 'cause you're close enough to refer to him by his first name."

"Look, would you rather hear me tell you what I think he wants to talk to you about, or would you rather have him tell you himself?"  Anders voice was aggravatingly calm.

"I'd rather know what I'm getting into."  Dee replied, making no effort to hide her annoyance.

"Well, I guess you'll just have to wing it.  Something I hear you excel at."

They'd stopped outside a featureless oak door.  Anders opened it and ushered her inside, closing it behind her.

Apart from a young man dressed in a denim jacket, his hair dyed and spiky, the room was empty.  Whatever it was that Daniel wanted to talk to her about, he'd called someone else in.  And apparently he was running late.  The man inside was looking pensively out the window of the office onto the skyline of San Diego.  It was late morning, and the sun was high enough to create a rather amazing lightshow upon the buildings.  The man himself was one of the few people she'd met who was actually smaller than she was.

"Excuse me," Dee spoke up.

The man looked over at her, as if noticing her for the first time.

"Are you here to meet with Mr…"

"Osbourne, Daniel Osbourne.  Oz."  The man held out his hand.

"_You're_…" Dee blushed a deep crimson, "I mean, of course you are.  I'm sorry, you're just not quite what I expected, Mr. Osbourne."

"You should see me during a full moon."

"What?"

"Long story.  It's Oz."

"Oz, as in…"

"Land of, Wizard of…  Short for Osbourne.  Have a seat."  He gestured towards the chair in front of his desk as he took a seat behind it.

"Mr.—Oz, what am I doing here?"

"Direct, to the point.  I like it.  You remind me of someone I knew in High School."  He nodded at her.

"Sir…"

"Well, the best answer I can give you is a question: When you graduated from UCLA, you were offered a position in L.A. that pays almost twice as much as we pay you.  Why'd you come to work with us instead?"

"Well, San Diego's home, and…"

"Your father died almost four years ago, your mother and sister are the only family you have left, and they're in L.A.  And again, we have them paying you almost twice as much as we are.  Why not work for them?"

"How do you know all this?"

Oz reached into a desk drawer and pulled out a file.

A very, very thick file.

He opened it and began reading from the page on the top "Deena 'Dee' Chlopan.  Age: 26, height: five feet, weight: 104 pounds.  Born to William and Betsy at UCSD Medical Center, San Diego.  Parents divorced when you were thirteen, and you elected to live with your father, who remained in San Diego while your mother and your younger sister moved to Los Angeles.  Graduated from High School and entered a Bachelor of Sciences program in Computer Science at UCLA.  Father diagnosed with Leukemia at the end of your first year, and you withdrew."  He saw the small brunette wince at the mention of her father, and he skipped a few lines,   "A year after his death, you applied for readmission at UCLA, successfully, to complete your degree three years later.  Mother and sister, only living family, are in L.A.  And now," he paused for a moment, "you work for me, and I would like to know why."

"Where did you get a file on me!?"

"Well, not all of this is you, we also have limited profiles on the guys you dated in college."

"_What!?_"

"Suffice it to say, we've had our eye on you for some time, Dee.  Now, why are you in San Diego?"

"Maybe I just like the weather."  Dee glared at him with undiluted hatred.

"Okay, let me ask it in a different way: do _you know why you came to San Diego?  I'll bet you a pay raise that you don't."  At her silence, he pressed on, "You're here," he said, "because you're supposed to be here."_

"Gee, that clears everything up."

"Have you ever heard of the town of Sunnydale?"

"Yeah, Mom, Dad and I used to pass through it on our way to L.A., but it was flattened by some kind of freak earthquake a long time ago."

"No earthquake.  Buffy."

"Come again?"

"Buffy was a vampire slayer.  _The_ vampire slayer, actually, until thirteen years ago.  Does that mean anything to you?  You would have been thirteen when it happened."

"Back up a second.  _Vampire?_  I'm a little old for ghost stories.  Demons, witches, vampires.  I think you've been reading a little too much Tolkien."  Dee held up a hand.

"Then how do you explain what you saw this weekend?  A giant man-like beast with wings attacks you while you're hanging off of a rock.  You'd think that would cultivate a healthy belief in the supernatural."

"In every generation a number of girls are born, each of which has the potential to become a slayer." Oz pressed on, "When a slayer dies, one of these potentials is called to take her place and is given the strength and skill to fight and defeat vampires, demons, creatures of the night, all the things you thought lived under your bed when you were little.  Or at least, that's the way it worked until thirteen years ago.  Willow…" Oz's breath caught for a moment, Dee suspected that there was more to this Willow person than he was telling, "Willow changed all that.  She activated 'em all at once… Including you."

"Me?  Oh, no, no, no."  Dee shook her head in vehement denial, "I'm no warrior, I'm a programmer."

"One dead, giant, man-like _demon with wings would disagree with you."_

That made her pause for a moment.  She had killed that thing, hadn't she?  And she had known how to do it, somehow.  Her mind flashed back to that day on the baseball diamond.  Something had happened to her, had been done to her that day.

"See, you're here because you know you have to be.  You don't know how you know, you may not even know that you know, but you know that something big is here, and you know that you need to be here to stop it."

"I thought you said there were others like me out there.  Why not call one of them?"

"We can't.  When Buffy and all them took down the First, the big bad guy, there were a whole bunch of other big bads just itching to step into his… her… its shoes.  Hellmouths cropped up all over the world, each one a lightning rod for demonic activity.  One of them is here in San Diego."

"So, why me?"

"You're a slayer.  _The_ slayer, actually.  At least in San Diego.  The rest are a little busy at the moment.  They have their own Hellmouths to feed."

"What if I don't want to get involved?"

"You weren't supposed to be.  We had a slayer, she's dead."  Oz's voice was noticeably wavering now.  "We were dumb enough to think she was invincible.  Look, whoever's calling the shots managed to get one slayer out of the way, then came after you.  You managed to dodge that bullet, but they're never going to stop until you're dead or they are… deader.  Whether you want to be or not, you're in this up to your eyeballs."

Oz paused to allow that to sink in.  He reached into his desk drawer again.

"Look, I understand that this is a lot to take in.  But you really should start training.  And I recommend carrying these with you."  He dropped a stylish silver cross and a wooden stake on his desk.  "You never know, they may come in handy."


	4. Beliefs

Disclaimer:  I don't own Buffy, or anything associated with her.  This is intended to be a creative exercise, and no profit is being made off of it, at least not by me.  Nope, Buffy is still the property of Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy, but I'm now making a standing offer to wash his car if he'd be willing to let go of 'em.

Chapter 4:

Oz watched Dee walk silently out of his office.  She had a slight slump in her shoulders, as though a gigantic weight had been placed there.  In a way, he realized, one had.  She'd never had to feel the burden of slayerness, as Faith has liked to call it, until that moment.  Now, this young woman was expected to be part of the front line in a war she didn't even know existed two days ago.  Two days ago, Dee had fully expected to make a decent living writing protocols for computer networks.  Now she was expected to kill all the creatures that went _bump in the night._

On the plus side, she had elected to take the stake and cross with her, so there was a pretty reasonable chance that she'd make it through the evening.  Provided, of course, that she didn't invite any strange men into her apartment.

"So, what do you think?"  He hadn't heard Anders enter through the side door, and he hadn't bothered looking to see if he was there.

"I think that if she can take out a Babylonian Vexhaur Demon while hanging off a rock wall two hundred feet off the ground, we may have a force to be reckoned with here."

Oz nodded, "Call Angel.  Tell him that we don't need him to split his time between L.A. and here just yet.  Then call Buffy and Giles in Cleveland.  Tell her that we have a new slayer in play."

"And Willow…"  Anders voice trailed off as he saw the pained expression on Oz's face.

"Yeah.  Call her too."  Oz's voice was quiet.  "She's somewhere in Alberta, Canada, with Kennedy to the best of my knowledge."

Anders nodded, "Calgary.  I'll take care of it."

Oz allowed himself to drop into his chair.

"She needs training."  Anders interjected, quietly.

"She _needs_ the one thing we can't give her: time.  Training," he looked over at Anders, "that's your department."

"You're sure she's on board?"  Anders asked.

"I sound sure, don't I?"  Oz replied.

"Trying to dodge the question?"

"You saw that slouch in her shoulders?"

Anders nodded.

"That's the slouch of someone who's resigned to an option they really, really don't like."

"You can read her… slouch that well?"  Anders' eyebrows raised slightly.

_Only because I've had that same slouch on a couple of occasions myself_. "Yeah.  She may not know it yet, but she's on board."

"Then I guess I'd better break out the Slayer handbook."  Anders nodded and started to turn to leave.

"Any idea how that demon managed to track her down?" Oz called after him.

"Yeah.  He followed her all the way from here to Utah.  He tried to take her out on the wall and make it look like an accident."

"That's a determined killer."

Anders' spine noticeably stiffened.

"What is it?"

"I was kinda hoping this wouldn't come up,"  he replied, dropping a ring on Oz's desk, "I found this at the bottom of Castleton Tower, where Dee was climbing."

Oz picked it up, running his fingers carefully over the intricate, spiderlike emblem on the top.  "The Order of Taraka."  He said, softly.

"They want her out of the way, badly."

"When they took out Anne, did they call in the Order for it?"  Something about this didn't add up.

"No.  By comparison, they're using a cannon to kill a mosquito."

"Which only makes sense if you're trying to kill a fricking huge mosquito."  Oz paused.  "Tell Angel that we'll be needing his help after all.  I hear he has one hell of a research department these days.  We need to know what makes this girl special, and we need to know yesterday.  Whoever's after her, they know something about her that we don't.  I'd like to remedy that quickly."

"You think she has a chance?"  Anders finally voiced the question that had been chewing at the back of both of their minds.

"If she lives through the night, maybe."

_There has to be some mistake._

Dee didn't like the idea of fate.  She didn't like the idea that her life, her actions, what she would do and become was somehow preordained.  She didn't like that some woman (what had Oz called her?  Willow?) had quite literally waved a magic wand and placed her in the middle of a war she'd been blissfully ignorant of only days before.

But she couldn't deny what she'd seen and heard in the last few days, as much as she wished she could.

Still…

_There has to be some mistake._

She was a programmer, what did she know about fighting a war, especially a war against all the creatures her parents had assured her didn't exist?

She could accept that there were creatures; demons, if you believe in such things; which science had not yet documented or catalogued.  She could accept that there were some things that science simply didn't have the answer to.

How was she to accept that it was her job to eradicate them?

Really, what had they ever done to her?  Granted, one of them had tried to kill her over the weekend, so she wasn't losing a lot of sleep over the fact that she'd killed it (or at least she thought she had, the fact that she hadn't found a body was still gnawing at the back of her mind).

The traffic was light that night on the freeway, it was good, all things considered.  It gave Dee a little bit of time to contemplate everything she'd been told in the last 24 hours.

_You're a slayer.  _The _slayer, actually.__  At least in __San Diego_.__

Oz's words echoed in her mind over and over again.  _The slayer.  His voice had taken on a note of reverence at the words.  As if being a slayer, or the slayer was something amazing and wonderous.  To her, it was just a word.  A word which suggested that she would be expected to kill lots and lots of…  _things_._

She parked her car and stepped out of it.  She felt the light weight of the wooden stake hanging in her inside jacket pocket, and the unfamiliar coldness of the silver cross hanging around her neck.  Strangely enough, she found both of these to be enormously comforting.

A wooden stake.  The traditional weapon used to kill a vampire.  What else was supposed to kill them?  Crosses, holy water, sunlight… they supposedly had something against garlic too.  She couldn't help musing as to whether she could have a priest bless her kitchen sink.  It would be nice to have an inexhaustible supply of holy water.

_What am I thinking!?_  She was having serious thoughts concerning vampires.  The stuff of horror movies, the kind of thing that you convince yourself can't be real after you turn the movie off.  She was having serious thoughts about something her rational, concrete mind insisted couldn't exist.

She unlocked the door to her apartment and stepped inside.

In the narrow entryway, the moonlight danced teasingly off of the walls.  Normally, Dee found the darkness somewhat comforting.

_Not tonight_.

She turned on the lights and released a breath, unaware that she had been holding it up to that point.  Her apartment was deserted.  Nothing was there.

_I don't believe in vampires_.  She repeated it over and over again in her mind.

She hung up her jacket in the closet in the hallway, and walked into the kitchen.

_I don't believe in vampires_.  She reached behind her neck and unclasped the silver chain which held the silver cross against her chest.

_I don't believe in vampires_.  The cross dropped unceremoniously to the kitchen table.

_I don't believe in vampires_.

The doorbell rang.

Who would be visiting her at this hour?  It was coming up on nine o'clock.  It was late, and she was tired.  Her mother was in L.A., Oz was still at work.  He practically lived there.

The doorbell rang again.

Dee walked to the door and opened it to see a fairly young man wearing a pair of gray coveralls.

"Hello, Ma'am, I'm here to check your gas meter."

"Gas meter?  It's a little late, isn't it?"

"No, ma'am.  New policy.  We found that it's hard to catch people during daylight hours."

Dee gave him a quick look-over.  He was in his late twenties, not much taller than she was.  He looked as though he'd blow over with a particularly forceful sneeze.

"Okay," She nodded, "Come in."

_Hey, wait a minute…_

The gas meter was in the basement of the apartment building.  There was no need for the meter reader to come to her apartment.

The young man looked at her and frowned.

No, it was more than a frown.  His whole face was changing.  His brow grew outwards, and his nose became hard, flattened and ridged.  His eyes, a pleasant shade of brown before had turned into a gecko-like yellow.

His canine teeth grew into long points.

With speed that could only be described as inhuman, he whirled around at her, growling, to grab her by the throat in a vice-like grip.  With that one hand he lifted her off the ground and pressed her against the wall of the entryway, her feet kicking uselessly a few inches off the ground.

"Thank you," He whispered to her in a cold, expressionless voice, "It was so kind of you to invite me in."


	5. Rage

Disclaimer:  As much as I wish I could claim otherwise, I do not own Buffy or the Buffyverse.  I don't own any of the characters associated with it, and I don't own any of the places Mr. Whedon invented to place therein.  Nope.  I'm just a guy who saw something in the series and was inspired by it (The offer to wash Mr. Whedon's car is still open, though).

Dee, however, is still mine, at least the character I've made her into.  Mr. Whedon was nice enough to give her ten seconds of screen time in "Chosen."

Chapter 5

Dee was pretty sure she could hear her body screaming for air.  Either that or her oxygen-starved brain was reinterpreting the animalistic growls of the beast that held her powerless as screams.

The grip on her throat, pressing hard against her windpipe was unbelievably strong.  Her lungs felt like deflated balloons, and no matter what effort she put into it, she couldn't force them to expand.

Through the dark spots floating in front of her eyes, clouding her mind and whiting out every one of her five senses, she felt herself pulled free of the wall, and slammed back and forth between the walls of the narrow hallway.  If she'd had any wind, she was certain it would have been knocked out of her.  This thing, whatever it was, wanted her dead, but it apparently wanted her hurt first.

She felt herself slammed into another wall, although this one felt different.  A little more horizontal than the last one.  The floor, maybe; or the ceiling.  It was getting hard to tell which.

_I need air._

She felt herself slammed again into the wall, or some other unyielding surface.

In a smooth motion that seemed impossibly slow, she brought her left hand, knife-like into her assailant's elbow, forcing the arm to bend.  Her right hand she brought up on the inside of his wrist, slapping it aside.

She felt his grip loosen, then release her.  She fell to (she assumed) the floor, although it was still difficult to tell up from down.  Her vision was clearing as fresh oxygen flooded her lungs.  If she could just have a couple of seconds to get her bearings again…

She wasn't going to get those couple of seconds.

The creature pulled back and backhanded her under her right eye.  It was a leisurely, almost relaxed motion.  The kind you would reserve for swatting a fly.  But the force behind it was phenomenal.  Dee felt herself propelled upwards and down the hall.  She hit the ground and skidded to a stop beneath the kitchen table.

_Ouch._

What the hell was this thing?

No, scratch that.  She knew what it was, even though her mind refused to believe it.  The far more pertinent question was how the hell she got rid of this thing.

Okay, what did vam— these things have issues with?  Wooden stakes, crosses, holy water, garlic, sunlight…

Where had she put the wooden stake that Oz had given her?

It was still in her inside jacket pocket.

And the jacket was in the closet in the hallway.

Behind the vam— the thing.

She needed a way out, and she doubted that just rushing him would work.

But it was worth a try.

She sprang to her feet and rushed at him, fists balled.

As expected, he responded with a hard punch in the center of her chest.  This time, she landed atop the kitchen table, which collapsed under the strain.

"_You're_ the slayer?"  His voice was hard and soft.  As though his vocal chords were unaccustomed to having air pushed through them.

"I'm not.  I'm just trying to live my life.  Why can't you just leave me the hell alone!?"  Her ribs didn't quite feel right, and the flesh around her right eye was already beginning to swell.  She could see bruises forming on her arms.  Her right shoulder felt like it was dislocated.

"You're the chosen one.  We can't have a slayer screwing up Osiris' plans."

"Hey, I've got nothing against this Osiris guy.  I don't even know him."

"Well, he has something against you.  So now," He leapt forward, straddling her, and opened his mouth, revealing his somewhat intimidating incisors, "You have to die."

Dee had never been able to hide her emotions.  Anything she was feeling generally appeared unmistakably on her face.  She'd never been able to control them either.

Now, she was feeling something dangerous.  Something that burned through her veins like an uncontrolled wildfire.  It tore through every muscle, every nerve, every tendon.  It burned behind her eyes, overwhelmed every sense.  

It was rage.

Pure, uncontrolled, unharnessed rage.

Her right hand came up, catching him open-palmed in the center of his mouth, followed immediately by her left hand coming up, open palmed under his chin.

She heard a very satisfying _crunch as she felt his jaw shatter under her hand._

As she pulled her right hand away, a thin silver chain hung from his lips, and already steam was beginning to curl out of his mouth.

A look of panic spread across his face as he tried to open his mouth, but the muscles in his jaw no longer had anything to pull against to open.  No bone.  No structure.  In one single blow, she'd effectively fused his jaw shut.

Almost casually, she reached down and picked up one of the table's broken legs.  She hefted it, feeling its weight in her hands.

"Y'know, in the last two days, I've had people react to me in exactly two ways."  She swung the table leg like a club, catching him on the side of the head.  He stumbled backwards, steam still pouring out of his mouth.

"Either they want to kill me," She swung upwards, catching him under his already broken jaw.

"Or they treat me like I'm the second coming."  She swung again.

"I didn't ask for this," Finally, the vampire fell under the impact of a fourth blow.

"I'm pretty sure I didn't want it."  Dee didn't allow the fact that he was on the ground to stop her.  She pummeled him mercilessly.

"But some bimbo decided thirteen years ago that my life was too boring, and dumped this on me."  This blow caught him on the bridge of his nose.

"It's like my whole life has been charted out without my having the least say in the matter," the table leg came down atop his head.  She felt something give, and she was fairly certain she heard a loud _crack_.

"And, frankly," She swung it, backhand, catching him under his right eye.  His head rolled around on his shoulders, he was barely, well, whatever passed for _conscious in a vampire._

She reversed her grip on the table leg, and plunged it into the center of his chest "I'm sick of it."

From the point of impact, she watched as a wave spread over his body, as though every bit of moisture had been sucked from him all at once, his skin dried and peeled away, his skeletal structure, complete with shattered jaw, crumbled.  And from the space his mouth had once occupied, a stylish silver cross fell to the tile floor with the faintest _ping_.

Oz was roused from a deep slumber by a loud crash.

Almost instantly, he was awake and on his feet.  It wasn't a vampire.  He hadn't invited any that he knew of.  He darted to the entryway of his house.  The door had been booted inwards.  Quite literally knocked off of its hinges.  The person who had knocked it in still stood in the doorway, silhouetted by the moonlight.

In a motion that seemed impossibly fast, they rushed him, landing a single punch on the right side of his face.

He was thrown back and fell somewhat ungracefully on the carpeted floor.

"Hi, Dee."  He picked himself up off of the floor and got a good look at her.

Her right eye was swollen almost to the point of being closed, her right arm hung at an odd angle from her shoulder, and she was walking with a severe limp.  Bruises covered just about every inch of exposed skin and blood still flowed from a very nasty-looking gash above her left eyebrow.  Her nose was bleeding uncontrollably.

"Rough night?"


	6. Understanding

Disclaimer:  Nope, I still don't own Buffy, or the universe Joss Whedon created for her.  He still hasn't got back to me about my offer to wash his car.

Chapter 6:

Oz could very nearly feel the white-hot fury radiating off of Dee's skin.  Whatever had just happened to her, it had her really pissed off.

"What the hell have you got me into?"  Dee's voice was dangerously soft, deceptively calm, but her eyes betrayed a barely-contained rage.

Oz picked himself up off the floor.  "Dee, do you really want to hurt me?"  His voice was calm, steady.

"The thought had crossed my mind."  Her fists were clenched, and in spite of the fact that she was clearly in a lot of pain, she seemed perfectly willing to hand over a broken neck to go along with the black eye Oz knew he would have in the morning.

Oz let his hands drop to his sides.  "Okay," his voice was still perfectly calm, "go ahead."

"What?"

"Go ahead.  Take your best shot."  His voice hadn't so much as wavered, "I can't fight you, and frankly, under the circumstances, I can't say I'd blame you either.  So go ahead."

For a moment, Dee stood, unsure of exactly what to do.  Part of her wanted to take a swing at him, see if she could knock his head clean off of his shoulders.

A bigger part, however, knew that she wouldn't.

She drew a long, shuddering breath, and allowed the raw anger to flow off of her like a waterfall.  She felt like a puppet whose strings had just been cut.  As though the only thing that was holding her upright had been the rage.

Finally, succumbing to sheer exhaustion, she collapsed in a heap on the floor.

"Dee!"  Oz rushed forward, and caught her in his arms before her head hit the floor.

"You owe me a new kitchen table."  She whispered, and passed out.

It was almost four hours before she opened her eyes again.  She was lying on the couch in Oz's living room, or at least she thought she was.  She'd never actually been in Oz's living room before.  Oz himself was quietly snoozing on the comfy chair next to her.  The beginnings of a black eye were just barely visible.

She brought her hand up to her brow, feeling a large adhesive bandage.  She winced as she wondered which of the many blows she'd taken that night had created that cut.  Her shoulder, still sore, felt like it had been reset.

"How are you feeling?"  Oz's voice, still calm, although somewhat groggy, broke into the mental inventory she was taking of her body.

"Like I was in the loosing end of a fight against a sledgehammer."

Oz smiled a little, "Well, if it helps any, you won that fight 'cause, well, you're alive."

"Tell that to my broken bones."  Dee muttered bitterly.

"I don't think anything was really broken.  You may have a couple of cracked ribs.  Oh, and your shoulder was dislocated.  All of that should have healed by tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?"

"Quick healing.  Part and parcel of the slayer gig."  He offered a thin smile, "Right now, you look like a giant banana.  This time tomorrow, you won't even be able to tell anything had happened to you at all."

He gestured at his eye, "This, on the other hand," he smiled, "will take days to heal."

"Sorry about that."

Oz shook his head.  "Don't worry about it.  Like I said, you had a hell of a night."

There was a long, uncomfortable silence.

"Why don't you tell me about what happened last night?"

"A guy came over to read my gas meter."

"Isn't your gas meter in the basement of the building?"  Oz pointed out.

"Yeah.  I kinda realized that after I let him in."

"You invited him in?"  Oz asked.

"Yeah.  Dumb move?"

"Well, yeah."  Oz shrugged.

"Anyhow, he changed, we fought, he lost.  He took the business end of a table leg.  Hence, you owe me a new kitchen table."  She added.

"Well, while we're on the subject, I have a door which was recently forcibly relocated…"  Oz pointed out.

There was another long silence.

"Do you remember anything in particular about him?"  Oz asked.

"He didn't much like the taste of that cross you gave me."  Dee offered a slightly lopsided smile.

"I figured.  Anything else?"

"Well, after he… went away, there was a ring left behind."  She fished around in her pockets.  "Here."

Oz took it in his hand.  "The order of Taraka."

"Say what?"

"Basically an order of assasins.  Some human, some not.  They're remarkably good at killing their targets and generally do very little collateral damage.  You've taken out two of them so far."  Oz explained.  "With no training." He added.

"The… thing at the tower?"

Oz nodded.

"So, basically, you're telling me that some guy I've never met and have no problem with has sicced a group of assassins on me?"

Oz nodded again.

"Why?"

"You're the slayer."

"But I'm not!"  Dee insisted.  "I'm just a girl trying to live her life.  Why isn't that enough anymore?"

Oz looked at her, sympathetically, "Because the world won't let that be enough anymore," he replied, gently.

Dee was silent again for a long time.  "How did they not know?"  She asked softly.  She didn't seem to be asking anyone in particular.  Maybe she wasn't even expecting much in the way of an answer.

"Not know what?"  Oz asked.

"How come it didn't ever cross their minds how many lives they would be changing?  Not just mine, but all the others out there?"  Dee was on the verge of tears.

Oz chose his words carefully.  He didn't know how to answer this, exactly.  Finally, he gave the only honest answer he had: "I wasn't there, but I know Willow."  He paused for a moment, composing himself, "She would never do something like this without considering the consequences."

"You knew this Willow really well, didn't you?"  Dee asked.

"I did."  The tone in Oz's voice made it clear that the subject was closed.  "We decided after Will did the whole big mojo thing that we'd just let you and all the other new slayers just live out your lives.  There was really no need to bring you in.  What you didn't need to know couldn't hurt you."

"And we didn't need to know that all the creatures that we used to believe were under the bed were actually there?  We didn't need to know that we could someday be required to kill them off?"  There was a slight note of sarcasm in Dee's voice.

"Well, yeah.  When we lost Anne, that sort of forced you into play a lot earlier than we thought."

Dee was silent again for a moment, "So, is there any chance that there's a pay-raise involved with my new position?"

Oz smiled.  "Tell you what, if you're still alive in the morning, we'll talk."

Dee picked herself up from the couch.  "I guess I'd better make my way home, then."  She tested her weight on her right leg.  It still didn't feel quite right, but definitely better.

Oz nodded.  "Good idea, and try not to invite any strange men into your house again."

Dee smiled and nodded.  She made her way to the heavily-damaged doorway.  "Sorry about that," she said, indicating the broken doorframe.

"It's okay.  You owe me a door, I owe you a table.  We'll call it even."

Dee nodded.  "Oz," she said, without turning around.

"Yeah?"

"Thanks."


	7. Training

Disclaimer:  Nope, Mr. Whedon still hasn't accepted my offer to wash his car, so I still don't own Buffy, the universe she resides in, or any of the other people who reside there.  This is intended as a creative exercise, so please treat it as such, no breach of trademark is intended.

Chapter 7:

"So, who won?"  Anders looked at the very angry-looking black eye Oz was sporting the next morning.

Oz smiled a little, "Well, since she was the only person unconscious at the end of it, I'd say I did by default."

"She came to your house?"  Anders' eyebrows raised.

"Right through the front door.  Literally."  Oz nodded.

"And decided to punch you upon arrival?"

Oz shrugged, "She had a rough night."

"What happened?"

"A vamp attacked her at home."  Oz said, "Another of the Order."

"She invited him in?"

Oz nodded, "She has a lot to learn."

"So, how'd she do?"

"She had the crap pounded out of her.  She was barely standing when she got to my place."

"But she was alive."  Anders shook his head, "There's exactly one other human being who can make the claim that she's survived two assassination attempts from the Order, and she was a fully trained slayer when she was targeted."

Oz nodded, "with training, we could have a serious force to be reckoned with here."

"There's something you're not telling me."  It wasn't a question.

Oz sighed, "In a lot of ways she reminds me of Faith, and not in a good way."

"How's that?"

"Part of what made Buffy the slayer she was was the amount of self-control she always exercised.  Even when she was accused of murder, her mother had thrown her out, and her boyfriend was evil, she managed to keep herself together enough to win."  Oz paused, "Dee doesn't have that.  If she gets pushed far enough to snap, then you'd better get out of the blast radius.  She doesn't hold anything back."

"That's not necessarily a bad thing."  Anders pointed out.

"She nearly beat that vampire into a pulp before she staked it."

That made Anders pause for a moment: "How do you know?"

"Bruising around her thumbs and index fingers.  You hit something with a club-like object, a baseball bat or a table leg, hard enough and enough times, and you get that kind of bruising.  It's worse if you're gripping the club particularly tight."

"So you think she's out of control?"

"Oh, no.  She's in control, except when she's not.  Let's just say that I pity the guy who ever crosses her."

"Hell hath no fury…"  Anders muttered under his breath.  "Well, you'd know more about loss of control than just about anybody," he pointed out.

"Touché," Oz conceded.

"Untrained, she took out a vampire and a demon.  Both were trained assassins.  If getting her pissed off accomplished that, I'm not about to tell her not to get pissed off."

"Buffy used to say that anger gave her a fire, and that a slayer needed that.  Dee's sitting on a blast furnace.  She gets pissed off enough, and I'm not sure that there's any force on Earth that can stop her."

"Are you saying you don't want her trained?"

"Of course not." Oz shook his head, "Just… be careful.  She looks tiny and frail, but there's a lot more to this girl than meets the eye."

"I will.  Don't worry, I'll keep an eye on her."  Anders stood up to leave.

The phone on Oz's desk rang.  Oz picked it up.

"Hello?  Angel?"  He paused for a long moment, "Okay.  Tell me what she is."

Dee had never been down to the basement before, and now she was beginning to understand why.  The expansive area under the building had been transformed into one of the most extensive training facilities she had ever seen.  The walls were lined with archaic weapons, some of which she recognized, some of which she had never seen or even heard of before.

Crossbows, swords, axes, knives, those were the easy ones.  Then there were the weapons whose function she could only guess at.

"You have a basement full of God-knows-whats, and Oz gives me a _stake_ to defend myself?"  She sounded somewhat exasperated as she turned slowly around in the gigantic room.

Anders allowed a smile to cross his lips, "Actually," he told her, "the stake is probably the best weapon you have."  He paused, "actually, second best.  Your best weapon is your brain.  Learn to use that, and the demons don't stand a chance."

"Hey, I stabbed a vam— that guy with a table leg.  An axe or a sword of some description woulda been nice though."

_From what I hear, you did more than stab him with it._

"Not to mention the _thing_ I took out with a pebble."  She shrugged, "I mean, heck, anything a rock'll do, a gun'll probably do better."

"Actually, in both those cases, you lucked out.  If your kitchen table had metal legs, you wouldn't have accomplished anything.  Vampires can be killed by a stake or projectile which was part of a living thing, wood, bone, ivory; sunlight, crosses, holy water, or decapitation.  Babylonian vexhaur demons are vulnerable to projectiles that come from the earth; rocks, dirt, pure metals…"

"Is this where you trained Anne?"  Dee cut him off.

"How did you…"

"Oz told me.  Is this where you trained Anne?"

After a long time, Anders finally nodded.

"How'd it happen?"

"The guy who's running the show here,"

"Osiris."  Dee chimed in.

"Osiris?"  Anders looked confused.

"That's his name."

"How do you know?"

"The guy who accosted me in my apartment dropped that name when he was about to take a nibble of me, before I talked him out of it."

"And you didn't mention it until now?"  Anders frowned.

"Nobody asked."  Dee shrugged.

"You know, you could at least pretend to be on our side on this."  Anders was openly scowling at her.

"Hey, until yesterday, I didn't know there was a side to take.  Besides which, I just assumed you already knew.  The way the guy dropped the name, it was like everybody knew."

"Either that, or he didn't think you'd live long enough to use it."  Anders pointed out.

"Guess I was lucky."  Dee's voice dripped with sarcasm.

"You were."  Anders replied.

Dee rolled her eyes, _and they say that sarcasm is wasted on the young.  "So, go on."_

"Hmm?"

"You were about to tell me what happened to Anne."

"Anne had made life difficult for… Osiris."  Anders continued, "He'd sent a couple of his minions out to kill her on a number of occasions.  Each time, she managed to fight them off."  He paused, "Anne was… good at what she did."

"How'd he get her?"  Dee asked.

"Sheer numbers.  In a single night, he must have mobilized hundreds of demons and vampires against her.  They'd attack her one at a time.  Slowly wearing her down.  Even Slayer stamina has its limits.  Finally, she had nothing left to fight with, and she lost."  Anders could feel a lump sitting uncomfortably in his throat, "we never found a body," he added.

"Well, then maybe she's still…"

"No."  Anders cut her off, "Osiris isn't stupid.  He wouldn't have started coming after you unless he was certain she was out of the way."

"So this guy sends hundreds of demons to kill Anne in one night, and a demon and a vampire to kill me in the space of two?"  Dee frowned, "I think I'm insulted."

"Don't be insulted.  Be afraid."  Anders looked her straight in the eye.  "When he killed Anne, the demons and vampires were essentially cannon fodder.  Expendable.  He knew he'd lose dozens, maybe even hundreds of them to this slayer, but he didn't care, as long as she was out of the way.  With you he's sending trained assassins.  The Order of Taraka has been sent after literally tens of thousands of targets since the beginning of recorded time.  In all that time, they have failed to kill the target exactly once."

"Me?"

"Buffy.  They haven't technically failed with you yet."  Anders replied.

"Gee, thanks for that vote of confidence."

"Oh, believe me, I have no desire to see you dead.  For one thing, that means that I'll have to find a new programmer."

Dee muttered something under her breath.  It didn't sound terribly polite, whatever it was.

"Okay, shall we begin your training?"

Dee let out a long breath, and nodded.


	8. Visions

Disclaimer:  I don't own Buffy, the universe she inhabits, or any of the characters who share it with her.  Those all belong to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy.

Dee, to the best of my knowledge, is mine.

With apologies for not updating sooner.  I was out of town for a few days.  I hope my failure to update recently has not affected my readership.

Chapter 8:

_Beijing__, __China_

Xia allowed herself to breathe in the night air, not that she really needed to.  It had been a while since she'd allowed herself out on the streets.  Right now, though, she needed a bite.  It was just after nine o'clock in Beijing, and the sun had set less than an hour earlier.  The streets of Beijing were never truly quiet, though.  There was always someone who could be made to disappear without drawing too much attention.

Ever since the hellmouth had opened here, she could walk more freely.  In a world where strange had become somewhat commonplace, she blended in perfectly with the background.  She'd lucked out, to some degree.  It had been her talent for blending in that had attracted Dreanis' attention.  He was basically running the undead show in Beijing, and he needed someone with a talent for finding things.  If he needed something, the odds were that she could find it.  For the last few months she'd been completing the largest task that he'd ever put before her: "Build me an army," he'd said.

The army was almost together, and would be at full force within the week.  Some of the strongest, most deadly demons in eastern Asia had been gathered together.  Soon, Dreanis would be ready to step into the void left by the destruction of the First.  The slayer in town had made things somewhat difficult, but even she was powerless to stop the building of such an unstoppable force.  She had a way of surprising them, though, so Xia made a mental note to arrange to have her eliminated at the nearest convenience.

The fact that there were a few more slayers in the mix had changed the game significantly.  Demons of all types and varieties had banded together to hold off the slayers in groups.  It was an eerie level of cooperation, considering that they _were_ demons.  One-on-one, no demon lived who could take on a slayer, but the demons had the advantage of numbers on their side.  Slayers, while there were more of them now than there had been back in the heyday of demonkind, Xia recalled with some longing, were still few and far between.  She'd heard of one eliminated in San Diego only weeks before by a delightfully simple ruse: destroyed by the sheer weight of numbers.

She smiled to herself at the thought of the onslaught which would be Dreanis' army.  Not even the slayers, all together, could possibly stop it.

She allowed her thoughts to drift to more pertinent matters.

Where was dinner?

Tonight, she was in the mood for someone young, someone with a lot of life ahead of her.  A baby would be ideal.  Someone whose life she could suck out before it had even really begun.

As she walked slowly past an alleyway, she saw a young woman, about twelve, huddled next to a building.

_Ah, yes,_ she smiled, _young, beautiful, and someone nobody will miss._

If she had a beating heart, she imagined it would be hurting at that moment.  She'd had a daughter once, before she'd… changed.  Now, she would be about the age of the young girl she was about to eat.  She couldn't help but wonder what the blood of her own daughter would taste like.

The young girl was rocking back and forth against the building, as if trying to warm herself up.  Her hair was tangled and filthy.  Dirt, grime and tears streaked her cheeks.

[Is there some way I can help you?] She spoke perfect English, but she figured it was far more likely that her victim spoke Cantonese.

She looked up at Xia, shivering from the cold.

[There, there.  It's okay.]  Xia held out a hand and gently caressed her cheek, [I'm not going to hurt you.]  She smiled, tenderly, [what's your name?]

[Y-Yue.]  She spoke, finally.

Xia smiled.  She was about to die when she'd probably felt hope for the first time in months.  They should all be so lucky.

"You know, they say you shouldn't eat before bedtime.  You'll give yourself heartburn."

The voice spoke in English, but that wasn't the only thing that seemed odd about it.  The new voice did not echo off the hard walls of the buildings surrounding them.  It was as if the voice itself had no life.  As if it passed directly from mouth to ear without taking any opportunity to live for itself.

Xia stood up and looked at the newcomer.  She was about 5'6", she could tell in the moonlight that she had dark red hair.  A black leather jacket extended down her legs, which were covered by a pair of black leather pants.  "I think you should leave now.  This does not concern you."

"This, or actually, she" the stranger indicated the young girl, "does concern me."

By way of response, Xia raised her right hand and snapped her fingers.

From the shadows, five distinct forms materialized.  They melded into large, heaving, bulky forms surrounding the strange woman.  "Kill her," She ordered, simply.

The fight was over in fewer than thirty seconds.  She watched in shock as this stranger dispatched, almost effortlessly, each of her bodyguards, one at a time.  Her speed, her strength… it was incredible, well beyond anything human.  The stranger was moving with grace that seemed incredible, considering the sheer brutality of her strikes upon the five demons.

As the fifth creature fell, the newcomer looked skeptically at Xia.  "Is this your army?  I must say that so far I am completely unimpressed."

"They are my bodyguards…"

"Oh, yeah, your army's at the other end of town.  Don't worry, they'll be dead long before daybreak."

"Do you believe I would allow that," Xia allowed her demon face to come forth, "Slayer?"

"Good guess, but I'm no slayer."

"Then why…?"

The stranger's brow furrowed, and her eyes shifted from a pleasant gray to an unnatural yellow, assuming the unmistakable visage of a vampire, "you were stealing my lunch."

She attacked, viciously.  Xia was horribly outmatched, and knew she was horribly outmatched.  Anyone who could take on five of her bodyguards…

Finally, making a choice, Xia turned and ran.

A pebble struck her in the back of the head, and Xia pitched forward, landing hard upon her face.

"Tsk, tsk.  Didn't your mother ever tell you it was rude to run out before dinner is finished?"

"Who _are_ you?"  Xia asked, desperately trying to crawl her way, backwards, from this evil creature.

"I guess I'm your worst nightmare."  She ran forward and planted a single knee on Xia's chest, pinning her to the ground.  She reached into her inside jacket pocket, "I'm a vampire with a vial of holy water."

Xia clawed desperately at the leg which held her pinned to the ground, but she may just as well have been a fly trying to move a stampede of elephants.  She simply had no possible way to lift this creature off of her.

Slowly, deliberately, the vampire uncorked the vial she held in her hand.  Then, again very deliberately, she poured its contents down Xia's throat.

Xia could feel it burn its way down her throat and through her veins.  She could feel it burning every organ, every tissue, every cell in her body, one at a time.  She could feel her body crumbling, those parts that has first been in contact with the holy water being the first to go.  She could feel herself burning from the inside out.  It was as though she'd swallowed a bottle of acid, and could feel it burning its way free of the confines of her body.

Through senses ravaged by inhuman pain, she heard the strange vampire speak four last words to her:

"Osiris sends his regards."

At the same instant, 6358 miles away, Dee awoke, screaming.


	9. Blood

Disclaimer:  I don't now, and never have owned Buffy, or the universe Mr. Whedon created.  This is a story about a character shown for about ten seconds in "Chosen" who, I felt, had a story which needed telling.

Chapter 9

Dee was still unnerved that afternoon as she threw a series of devastating strikes at the wooden dummy in front of her.  She'd had somewhat disturbing dreams before, obviously, but this one had her really riled up.  She couldn't shake the feeling that she had some connection with the strange, red-headed vampire she'd seen in her dreams.

She shook her head.  _It's just a dream, she thought angrily to herself._

She turned her attention to the dummy in front of her (what had Anders called it? a Wing Chun dummy?).  It looked more like a log with a few sticks sticking out of it in strategic locations, but it definitely trained her to move quickly and strike with rather outstanding speed and precision.

"The Bak Fu Pai style of Kung Fu dates back to the 17th century."  Anders voice droned in the background as Dee launched another barrage of strikes and blocks.  "It is one of the first styles of self defense which made the fundamental assumption that your opponent is both larger and stronger than you are."

Dee threw a snap kick at what would have been the head of the dummy, if it had one.

"In 1644, the Chiang dynasty, a dynasty of non-Chinese came to power in China."  Anders went on, "For over two hundred years, a small society of Chinese set about developing a style of defense which would allow them to repel the invading Manchurians.  They ultimately succeeded in 1911."

Dee stopped, "Look, Anders, I really don't want a history lesson."  She looked over at him, "I would just really like not to die if someone gets it in their mind to try to kill me again."

"Bak Fu Pai isn't that simple.  You can't truly learn this art without understanding the history and the philosophy behind it."

Dee frowned, "Watch me."

Anders struggled to hide his annoyance.  _Anne never gave me this much trouble,_ the thought drifted through his mind before he could eliminate it.  He immediately felt the inevitable pang of remorse and sadness which always accompanied any thoughts he had of her.  He was fairly certain that he'd never be able to forgive himself for losing her.  Part of him would always wonder if there was something more he could have done to prepare her.  Part of him would always feel that he had failed, somehow.

Dee looked down at her arms, where large blue welts were already beginning to form.  "Don't suppose these dummies come with padding, do they?"

"Do vampires come with padding?"  Anders raised an eyebrow.

"Are vampires made of hardwood?"  Dee retorted, angrily.

"Nobody's making you hit it so hard."  Anders pointed out.

Dee rubbed her bruised knuckles, "nobody but my own will to live.  I won't learn to hit vampires if I keep pulling my punches on the dummy."

"Point."  Anders conceded.  "Your training's going well.  Another week and you'll be a full-fledged slayer…"

Dee held up a hand, silencing him, "now, hold it right there," she rebuked him, "Let's get one thing perfectly clear here: I'm not in this for your war.  I'm here because I want to live through the week.  After this order of whatchamacallit leaves me alone, I'm getting my butt out of here."

Anders cocked his head slightly to one side: "Even _if," he emphasized the word, "you're able to keep the Order of Taraka away from you, Osiris is never going to stop until you're dead.  For you, he's the most dangerous creature in existence: he's determined to kill you, and he has a virtually unlimited number of minions willing to do it for him."_

Dee glared at him.

"Like it or not, you're in this for the duration."

Dee contemplated the fact that Anders body would probably hurt her knuckles a lot less than the Wing Chun dummy.  She doubted that beating up your manager was grounds for being dismissed from the whole slayer gig.  Instead, she decided to turn her aggression back to the dummy.  At least that wouldn't get her fired from her job.

_Who was that red-headed vampire?_

The thought ploughed into her mind, catching her by surprise.  It seemed out of place somehow, as though it had been forcibly inserted into her consciousness.  At the same time, it seemed perfectly natural.  As though it was something she was meant to pursue…  Something part of her _wanted_ to pursue.

_She was a figment of your imagination, shut up._

That was her rational mind, the part she'd cultivated and exercised so extensively during her undergraduate studies.  The part of her that was still having a problem with the existence of the supernatural.  The part that was still trying to rationalize everything.

She'd killed a vampire that night in her apartment.  It seemed sensible that her mind would construct a dream in which she lived out the last moments of a vampire's unlife.

That explained the dream.  It didn't explain why she was playing the role of a vampire in Beijing, and why she could speak and understand Chinese.  Or at least she thought it was Chinese.

_And where _did_ that red-headed vampire come from?_

That dream had seemed so real.  She could still feel the holy water burning through every vein and capillary, tearing mercilessly over every nerve and though every organ.  She could remember feeling her skin burn and peel away.  She'd had vivid dreams before, but never anything that vivid.

What had her name been in the dream?  Xia?  Where had that name come from?  She didn't know any Xia.

She still shuddered at the utter lack of remorse she— Xia had shown in her dream.  Asking herself almost casually what her own daughter's blood would have tasted like.  A twelve year old girl was little more than a snack to her.

Her attacks and blocks were becoming steadily more vicious.  The hard wood dummy was groaning under the strain.

She could remember every feature of the redhead's face.  Both her vampiric face and her human face had been burned inexorably into her mind.

_It was just a dream.  Dreams can't hurt you._

That was her father's voice.  Whenever she'd have dreams about monsters, vampires, ghosts or goblins, that was always what her father told her.

She remembered one dream she had, it would have been a couple of days before that day at the baseball diamond, it was a series of dreams, actually.  She was always some girl somewhere in the world being chased down by dark, hooded men with no eyes.  She remembered once she was something of a punk in Germany, another time she was a girl somewhere in Turkey.  Each time she'd woken up, practically in tears.

_It's just a dream.  Dreams can't hurt you._

"Dee," Anders voice rose gently above the rhythmic banging of flesh on wood.

Dee ignored it.  She ignored the insistent complaints of her abused knuckles and feet as they connected again and again with the unyielding wood.  She ignored the cries of her aching muscles, begging her to stop.

_Physical pain is the easy kind._

"Dee, stop."

She ignored him again.  She threw another kick at the dummy, all but oblivious to the jarring pain which shot up her shin all the way to her hip.  She followed it with a blurred barrage of punches.  She didn't realize that she was grinding her teeth together.

"Dee!"  Anders swung an arm up against her chest, restraining her before she could launch another attack.

The punch hit him just below his left cheekbone, snapping his head around and backwards.  The force wasn't sufficient to actually knock him out, but it stunned him enough that his legs collapsed under him.

He reached up to the place where the punch had landed, and his fingers came away bloody.  It took him a moment to realize the blood wasn't his.

"Dee, your hands."

Dee looked down at her hands.  Blood was flowing freely from all of her knuckles.  If she hadn't been a— It was pure luck that she hadn't broken every bone in both of her hands.

"Go to the company nurse and have your hands bandaged.  We're done here today."

Anders could almost see the tension drain out of her body as she walked silently past him to leave.

"So, who won?"  Oz looked up at the forming bruise under Anders left cheek as he walked into the room.

"Well, I got knocked off my feet, but she was the only one bleeding."

"You made her bleed?  You've only been training her for two days.  Most Watchers wait a week before they draw blood from their slayers."

"I didn't make her bleed, the wooden dummy did."

Oz nodded, taking that in for a moment "I can't say I'm surprised."

"Something's eating at her."

"I know."  Oz replied.

"What did Angel say?"

Oz looked up at him, "I don't know."

"You don't know, or you won't say?"

"There's an ancient prophecy that speaks of a slayer borne of anger and fury," Oz started.

"That certainly sounds like our girl."

Oz nodded, "and the timing is right too.  The astrology matches the day she was attacked by the demon on the tower."

"What does it say about her?"

"Well, the fact that she's specifically mentioned is impressive in and of itself.  After Buffy activated all of 'em, most of the slayers don't get much prophetic attention."

"So, what does it say?"

"It's vague.  It speaks of someone borne of anger and fury, who will know darkness but be of the light, another borne of peace and tranquility who will know light but be of darkness.  The eternal matching of equal and opposites.  Sort of a Yin and Yang principle."

"Osiris?"

"I'm not sure.  The prophecy doesn't say.  And it doesn't explain why Osiris would want her dead so badly."

"Well, whatever his motives are, we'd better figure them out fast."

Oz nodded, "Dee's life may depend on it."


	10. Death

Disclaimer:  Still don't own 'em.  Mr. Whedon does.

Be warned, this is where things get a little on the graphic side.

Chapter 10:

_Sapporo__, __Japan_

Eri could feel her strength failing her.

In the five years since she'd assumed the mantle of Slayer on the Sapporo hellmouth, she had literally faced hundreds of vampires, demons and other nasties.  Five years, and she'd been so far undefeated.

Until today, she never felt that she'd met her match.

Granted, a few had been difficult, some had been downright hellish.  But never until this moment had she seriously entertained the possibility that she could lose a fight.

The vampire had the edge in brute strength, but Eri felt she was a fraction quicker.

But that's all the difference was between them: fractions.

More eerie than that was the fact that each of them seemed to sense the other's moves the instant they were made.

Had it not been for the obvious differences in ethnicity, appearance, dress, height, and mortality, Eri would have had the strangest impression that she was fighting against herself.

The vampire took a step backwards, distancing herself from Eri.  Almost casually, she brushed her red hair away from her eyes.

There was no fear in the vampire's eyes.

This caught her by surprise.  She'd killed hundreds of vampires, and each time she'd seen an unmistakable wave of fear spread over them once they realized that she was a Slayer.  They'd inevitably try to kill her, but part of them always knew that they would lose.

This red-headed vampire didn't think she was going to lose, on the contrary, she seemed rather certain that she was going to win.

She launched another attack, grabbing for Eri's throat.  She'd had enough of the fight, now it was time to go in for the kill.

Eri spun out of the way, pulling a small wooden stake out from behind her back.  She continued spinning, bring the point of the stake directly at the center of the Vampire's chest.

The vampire caught Eri's arm at the wrist, halting her spin and throwing her off balance.

Then, in a swift, efficient motion, the vampire brought the palm of her hand down on Eri's forearm.

Through red-hot bolts of agony, Eri heard a sickening _crackle_ as the radius and ulna of her right arm both snapped cleanly about halfway between her elbow and her wrist.  The next thing she heard were her own screams.  She noted, in a detached manner, that she had done the same attack herself.  Vampires were dead, but they still felt pain.

She heard the stake drop from her nerveless fingers to the ground.  She felt the vicelike grip of the vampire's hands under her jaw and at the base of her skull behind her head.

She could see her stake, the one weapon she needed only a few inches away from her right hand.

It may just as well have been on the moon.  Her right had refused to move to grab it.

Effortlessly, the vampire snapped Eri's chin upwards, surgically severing the spinal cord at the third vertebrae; an injury commonly known as a Hangman's Fracture.

All the muscles and nerves in her body, cut off from the brain which controlled them, stopped firing and relaxed.  Her body sagged almost gracefully to the ground.  Her lungs collapsed, releasing the last lungful of air she had held, as her brain signaled in vain for them to expand.  The heart continued beating, an utterly useless gesture, not unlike bailing water out of the Titanic with a teacup.  It had no oxygen to pass to the tissues.

As Eri's brain ultimately succumbed to oxygen starvation, as she saw the darkness press relentlessly in in front of her eyes, she heard the even footsteps of the vampire walking away from her.

"One down," she heard, "How many hundreds to go?"

_Lennoxville_, __Quebec___, __Canada_

Gaëlle swung the sword viciously at the vampire's neck.

The vampire ducked, although the razor-sharp edge of the sword very nearly cut a lock of red hair free from her head.

Whoever this vampire was, she was good.  She'd never seen her before, which, now that she thought of it, wasn't all that unusual.  She only ever encountered most vampires or demons once.

She reversed her grip on the sword and stabbed straight at the Vampire's heart.  It wouldn't kill it, of course, but it would probably slow it down a little.

The vampire twisted her body just enough that the point of the sword stabbed through empty space, then she punched the young, blonde slayer in the solar plexus.

Gaëlle stumbled a few feet backwards, trying to get her lungs to function properly.

Finally, her lungs obediently expanded, and Gaëlle finally spoke the first word she'd spoken since the fight began: "bitch."

She threw a kick that caught the vampire in the center of her chest, knocking her back a few feet, then she swung again at her neck with the sword.  The vampire clapped her hands together, catching the sword by the blade.  She then snapped a kick at the side of Gaëlle's head.

Gaëlle lost her grip on the sword and stumbled, stunned.

The vampire gripped the sword by the hilt.

"Goodnight."  She whispered, bringing the sword down viciously at the slayer's throat.

The slayer's head struck the asphalt of the dark alleyway with a sickening _thud_. It was followed moments later by the sound of her body collapsing to the ground.

A small smile spread across the vampire's face.  "Next," she whispered.

_Chernogolovka__, _Russia__

Bog just didn't get it.  He'd never seen anything fight off five fyoral demons, much less a small, rather fragile-looking vampire.  Hell, this chick was deadly.  She was fast, strong, she was beating back demons who were four times her size.  And she was doing it without breaking a sweat.

Although, admittedly, he wasn't entirely sure that vampires sweated.

Fyoral demons are among the less vulnerable of the various demons.  They were vulnerable to silver, and very little else.  Beyond that, they were considered to be huge, unstoppable killing machines.

And this vampire was holding back their onslaught.  Countering their sheer brute strength with her own speed.  She was quite literally dancing circles around them.

Bog, on the other hand, was significantly more killable.  He was a thinker, not a fighter.  His particular breed of demon were the planners of the underworld, and he'd thought that he'd had everything worked out.

He'd amassed a huge force of Fyoral demons.  They could hold down and control the hellmouth here in Chernogolovka basically indefinitely.  Or as long as it took for Baal to figure out how to control it.

Most had seen the destruction of the First as the end of an era.  Baal had seen it as a power void ready to be filled.  The question was, really, who would fill it.  Bog was counting on it being Baal, once the dust settled.

Of course, he hadn't counted on this vampire being able to single-handedly take on a group of Fyoral demons.  Whoever had sent her, if he had more like her, could easily bring Baal down.

The vampire pulled what looked like a silver knitting needle from under her leather jacket, and in a series of quick motions, stabbed each of the Fyoral demons through the heart.

As each of the demons fell to the ground, she approached Bog.  Slowly, methodically.  As if she couldn't really be bothered to rush.

Bog held up his hands: "Hey, wait, I think we can make a deal here."

The vampire brought up a hand and gripped him around the throat.  "Nope."

She stabbed down through Bog's forhead.  With no fanfare whatsoever, his eyes rolled back into his head, and he went limp.

As if bored, the vampire released her grip on his throat, dropping him to the ground.

"Don't worry," she whispered to him, knowing that some small vestige of consciousness still remained in Bog's mind, "the rest of your demons will be joining you in a moment."

In the space of a week, the red-haired vampire single-handedly eliminated countless demons of all varieties, and a handful of slayers in the same cities.

And through the eyes of the victims, Dee watched them all die.


	11. Darkness

Disclaimer:  Still don't own 'em.  Joss Whedon and ME do.

Chapter 11:

Anders hit the thinly padded floor, hard.

He didn't have time to recover before Dee dropped down on him, bringing the point of the small wooden stake in her hand down at his chest, stopping it a few inches shy of his breastbone.

Anders nodded, approvingly, "Good."

Anders wasn't the type to reap praise upon anyone; including the slayer that had just methodically kicked his ass.

Dee stood, holding out her hand to help him up.  A thin layer of sweat glistened on her brow.  Normally her evening workouts didn't take this much out of her, but lately she hadn't been getting much in the way of sleep.  The horrible images that danced behind her eyelids every night were enough to wake a comatose person.

The dreams had been increasing in frequency and intensity.  When they started, they had occurred two to three nights a week, now she had a dream like that just about every night.  And they were becoming more and more vivid.  It was as if the redhead took an insane amount of pleasure trying to come up with new and creative ways of killing people.

And she didn't seem to discriminate.  Demon, vampire, human; they were all viable targets.

_Is that how I picture myself?_

She thought back to that night in Oz's house.  She, or at least part of her, had wanted to beat Oz to death.  That part of her had won out only minutes before; beating a vampire to what would be death in any human with a broken table leg.

"Your strength, your improvisation, and your skill are impressive."  Anders told her.

Dee found herself wondering if the expression in his voice would change if he were to start dictating names out of a phone book.

"Fortunately, the shitstorm that's hit just about every hellmouth on Earth has given us a miss."  Anders continued, "it's given us time to train you at least to the point where you're able to hold your own."

"What do you mean?"  Dee had finally caught her breath.

"Oh, someone's been killing off demons and slayers all over the world."  Anders said, "Fortunately, nothing's gone on here so…" he stopped, as he saw the color drain from Dee's face.

"I've been having recurring nightmares, probably for the last two weeks.  Pretty much ever since the night that vampire came into my apartment."  Dee was noticeably shaken as she sat in Oz's office a few minutes later, revealing the nightmares that had been plaguing her.

"Tell me about them."  Oz prodded, gently.

"I'm always someone different, and I'm always the victim.  Sometimes I'm a slayer, other's I'm a demon, at least twice, I've been a vampire.  The first time, I was a vampire named Xia, in Beijing, I think."  She told them.

"Xia?  I'll have Angel run that name."

"Don't bother, she's dead… deader.  _She_ force-fed her some holy water."

"She?"

"Some vampire, always the same.  Red hair, dark brown eyes before she… changes.  Smooth, calm voice.  No mercy.  She can fight off more demons in a single battle than I have in my whole life."

Anders shot Oz a look, asking a single, silent question.  Oz shook his head.

"She doesn't discriminate.  Demons, humans, slayers, vampires.  They're all the same to her.  Sheep.  Expendable."  She was visibly shaking now.

Oz reached forward and brushed a lock of brown hair away from her tear-filled eyes, "why didn't you tell us about this?"

"It's just a _dream!_" she made no attempt to mask her aggravation.

"Tell me, have you ever been a girl named Eri, in Japan, or Gaëlle in Canada?"  Oz asked.

Dee was shocked into a stunned silence.

"Their watchers reported that they were both killed."  Oz told her.

Tears were flowing freely from Dee's eyes now.

"Why didn't you tell us about this?"  Oz asked again, more gently this time.

"I thought," Dee's breath caught in her throat for a moment, "I thought I was going crazy."

Oz arched his eyebrows.

"I thought that maybe the red head was how I perceived myself.  Merciless, a killer."  She struggled to control the tears which were still falling from her eyes.

"Being a slayer doesn't make you a killer."  Oz told her.

"Tell that to the vampire I killed in my apartment.  Or the demon I killed on the tower."  She retorted.  "They were demons and vampires, but they had friends, in their own way, they probably also had families.  Okay, yeah, they tried to kill me, but I snuffed out their whole lives without a second thought."  She paused for a moment, "If I can kill them that easily, how am I any better than the monsters I'm supposed to be fighting?"

Dee slumped in her chair, as though the release of those words had sapped the last of the energy her slayer-enhanced body possessed.  "If that's all a slayer is, I don't want it."

"You _are_ the slayer."  Oz told her, "I know…"

Dee cut him off, "I'm not."

"What?"

"I'm not the slayer.  Find someone else to fill shop, 'cause I won't do it."

"Dee, it's not that simple."  Anders cut in.

"Why, 'cause Willow said so?"  Oz cringed at the anguish that laced Dee's voice, "Well fuck her.  She may be all powerful, but she doesn't control my life.  I'm not here to fight a war.  From here out, I'll take my chances."  Dee sounded like she was on the verge of bawling.  She stood up to leave.

"Dee, you can't just turn your back on us."  Anders pleaded.

She spun around angrily, glaring at him, "Try and stop me."

Nobody stood to impede her exit.

"Shit."  Anders muttered under his breath.

"Tell me about it."  Oz nodded.

"So, one person's behind the attacks on all the hellmouths."

Oz nodded again.

"And our slayer's just decided that she's had enough."

"She'll be back."  Oz replied.

"How do you know?"

"I know."  Oz's voice had a hard edge that Anders had seldom heard before.  It was clear that he didn't want to pursue the subject.

"At least no further attempts have been made on her life."  Anders sounded quite relieved at that.

"There haven't?"  Oz sounded surprised.

"Well, she hasn't told me about them, and she hasn't shown up with any unexplained bruises or cuts.  Apart from that, we have her on basically 24-hour surveillance."

Oz frowned.  _Something's not right here.  "Why hasn't there been another attempt?"_

"Maybe they gave up."  Anders suggested.

Oz just stared at him.

"Right, this is the Order of Taraka we're talking about."

"Doesn't it seem odd to you that they would send two demons after her in as many days, and then just drop it?"

"You're right, that doesn't make any sense."  Anders conceded.

"Why try to kill her, then completely let up on the pressure?"

"Osiris knows we're just going to train her that much faster if he tries to kill her and fails."  Anders announced, "Why wouldn't he go for the kill?"

"It's not like he hasn't managed to take out a slayer before."  Oz told him.

"No, it's not."

"It makes no sense, unless…"

"Unless he doesn't want her dead."  Anders finished.

"He doesn't want her dead.  He _wants_ her trained.  He _knew_ we'd rush her training if we knew she was in some kind of danger.  It wasn't by chance that she survived the first two assassination attempts.  It was by design."  Oz could feel a cold fist squeezing his chest.

Oz picked up the phone on his desk: "Get me Deena Chlopan's cell phone.  _Now."  His voice was insistent as it barked orders at his secretary._

Dee stepped lightly out of her car, a Volkswagen GTI, and closed the driver's side door behind her.  It was well after dark, but she was safe in her building's underground parking.  Vampires supposedly couldn't enter unless you invited them.  As far as she knew, she hadn't invited anyone into her building's underground parking.

That, and it had a keypad.  You had to enter a code into to get in.

She was safe here.

Her phone beeped at her.  She knew who had been calling her.  It was Oz, and he'd left a number of messages in her voicemail.  She really didn't want to talk to him.  The sooner she put all this slayer nonsense behind her, the better.

Someone tapped her on the shoulder.  She hadn't even heard them approach.

Dee whirled around, and as she came to face whoever it was, she felt a fist slam brutally into her cheek.

She flew halfway across the underground parking lot to connect unmercifully with the unyielding concrete wall.  She slid to the ground, not quite unconscious, but certainly in pain.  As her vision cleared, she looked up at her assailant.

She saw the same face, the same body that had plagued her nightmares for the last two weeks.

"So you're this year's model."  She spoke, "I was wondering what you'd look like."

Dee felt her stomach turn to ice as she suddenly realized both who this person was, and why she felt such a strong connection with her.

"_Anne?_"


	12. Passion

Disclaimer:  See Chapter 1.

Chapter 12

Oz's hands gripped the steering wheel.  Dee hadn't answered her phone.  He'd called her at least four times, which meant that she either didn't want to talk to him, or she had turned her phone off.

Or that she was dead.

His grip tightened.  Dee couldn't be dead.  She just couldn't.

First off, Osiris didn't want her that way.  Second, Dee was one of the most powerful slayers he'd ever encountered.  With more training, he wouldn't necessarily want to place any bets in a fight between her and Buffy.

But then, Anne was just about that good.

He was nearly positive that this mysterious vampire Dee was seeing was Anne, and he damn near wanted to kick himself for not having seen it sooner.  Osiris had managed to turn her.  No doubt, he realized the potential of a fully trained slayer.  But becoming a vampire was a voluntary process.  An exchange of blood back and forth.  He couldn't see Anne taking part in something like that.  She hated vampires, demons and monsters with a passion.  What on earth could make her voluntarily become one?

And Anne had been fully trained when they took her.

In a week, Dee might have been able to take her, or at the very least fight her into a stalemate, but not now.

_But that's not really why you're worried, is it?_  The voice in the back of Oz's mind piped up.

It had taken Oz almost three weeks to admit the truth to himself.

Dee didn't much care if she lived or died.  She didn't feel she had much left to live for.  Her father, the only one who had ever truly loved her, was gone.  Her mother and sister had never forgiven her for choosing her father over them.  Now, she saw herself as a killer.

Everything that had ever meant anything to her was gone.

His foot pushed harder on the accelerator, as the speedometer inched its way past 100 mph.

"We'll get there in time."  Anders soft voice wafted over from the passenger seat.  "We'll get there."

Oz couldn't tell exactly who he was trying to convince.

"Actually, I'm kinda surprised you didn't figure it out sooner."  Anne stood back, waiting for Dee to pick herself up from the floor of the parking lot.  "I mean, after spending so much time playing guest spots in each other's dreams, I'd think you'd have worked out our little _connection by now."_

Dee's mind was panicking.  She had no stake, and the parking lot was annoyingly lacking in wooden adornments.

And she'd seen this redhead wipe out literally dozens of demons without so much as being out of breath.

Of course, vampires didn't breathe.

"How did you get in here?"  Dee whispered.  Her lungs still didn't seem to be working right as she picked herself up.

Anne shrugged, "I was invited.  Funny thing.  The owners of this building installed a neon sign above the entrance to the underground parking.  You punch in your code, the door opens, and a bright red sign says: 'Enter.'"  She smiled, "A pretty unambiguous invitation if you ask me."

"What do you want with me?"  Dee's legs felt unsteady, and it hurt to breathe.  She didn't think anything was actually broken, but everything felt like it had been bruised in some way or another.  For the moment, it made sense to keep Anne talking until she got her bearings back.

"Me?  Nothing.  Osiris, on the other hand, he thinks you could be pretty useful to have around, if you could be turned to our way of thinking.  Me, I'd just as soon suck you dry."  Anne shrugged.  "Then, there's the prophecy."

"What?"  Dee frowned.

"Ah, Oz never told you about that.  The matching of opposites?  One of violence and fury but walking in the light, and one of peace and tranquility who knows light but walks in darkness?  Any of this ringing a bell?"

"I think you've been reading too many fortune cookies."  Dee reached behind her, and gripped her cellphone.  She had Oz's number on speed-dial, and she silently prayed that he could get there soon enough.

Oz's cellphone rang.

"Get that, Anders, I'm driving."  They were close now.  Oz had no clue what he was going to do when they got there, or even if they needed to get there.  For all he knew, Dee was perfectly fine, but somehow he doubted it.

"And I have to admit, I'm really looking forward to seeing what you've got."  The voice over the phone was painfully familiar.

"Shit, it's Anne."  Anders whispered.

Oz's foot pushed harder on the accelerator.  They needed to get there now.  Where were they?  Dee wouldn't have invited her into her apartment, he was certain.  She wouldn't have got out of her car until she thought she was safe.

"Can you hear an echo over the phone?"  He asked.

"What if I don't want to join your exclusive wannabite slayer club?"  That voice was Dee's.  _Good girl,_ Anders thought to himself, _keep her talking._

"Yeah, there's an echo.  And some static too.  It doesn't sound like her reception is too good."  Anders replied.

"They're in the underground parking."  Oz realized.  Somehow Anne had managed to get in without an invite.  How she got in didn't matter.  The fact that she _was in did._

"How are we going to stop her?  She's a slayer."  Anders pointed out.

Oz shook his head, "she _was_ a slayer.  I hope Dee realizes that before it's too late."

"She's got a slayer's strength, a slayer's training, and a vampire's invulnerability."

"But she's not a slayer."

"How are we going to stop her?"  Anders asked again.

Oz reached behind his seat, and handed a large, pistol-like weapon to Anders.  "Keep this handy."

They were approaching Dee's apartment building.  Oz could see the entrance to the underground clearly.

"How strong do you think that door is?"  Oz's eyes became fierce slits.

The heavy steel door of the underground parking lot exploded inwards as Oz's Hummer slammed hard into it, traveling at close to ninety miles per hour.  The door was strong, but very few structures can stand impact of over three tons of metal driven at it at that speed.

The gigantic vehicle, just barely small enough to fit through the opening it had just forced opened, slammed full force into Anne before Oz managed to get its runaway speed under control.

Anne was caught off guard and was flung almost as gracelessly into the concrete wall as Dee had only moments earlier.

The vehicle had barely stopped when Oz was out of the driver's seat and rushing the injured vampire.  He held a large wooden cross in front of him and a large wooden stake in his right hand.

Anne was unsteady on her feet when she stood, but her voice was one of cocky contempt as she saw Oz approaching her.  "You think you can stop me with a cross and a stake?"

"Works on most vampires."  The cross in Oz's hand didn't so much as shake.

"You forget."  Anne's voice was soft, "I'm not your ordinary vampire."

With the back of her right hand, she slapped the cross away.  Then she gripped Oz by the throat, slamming him against a concrete piller, and jarring the large stake free of his grasp.

"Goodbye, Oz."  She whispered, her demonic face coming forth.

"You forgot something, too."  Oz's voice was quiet.  He couldn't get much air to move through Anne's grip.

"What's that?" Anne's catlike, demonic eyes were mere inches from his.  Her fangs were poised to sink deep into the carotid artery of his neck.

Oz actually smiled.  "Full moon," He whispered.

Since becoming a werewolf, Oz had endeavored far beyond what could be expected of any mortal man to keep the animal under control.  First, by locking himself in a cage every time the moon was full.  Then; through meditation, charms and lots of hard work; he was able to remain functional even when the moon was full.

The mental effort required to keep the animal on a leash, especially during the full moon, could only be described as Herculean.  The last time he'd seen Willow, he'd had to walk away from her because her presence made the monster stronger than his ability to contain it.  Since that day, he'd never allowed it free, keeping it tightly sequestered within him.

Now, for the first time ever, he willed the animal loose.  He allowed bars of the cage he'd concocted within himself to evaporate, to scatter in the wind as though they were no more substantial than the air.  He permitted the beast to step forth within him.

The transformation from human to wolf was nearly instantaneous.  Perhaps because for the first time ever, Oz did not resist it.  On the contrary, he _welcomed the transformation.  He _needed_ his animal side to work._

His hands and feet stretched into long, sharp claws, his face and body sprouted thick gray fur.  His canine teeth crew into long, wolflike fangs.

In moments, he was no longer Oz.  He was an animal.

Dee watched the transformation with a sort of detached wonderment.  She'd seen some awfully strange things in the last few weeks.  Never before had she seen this.  Oz, normally so calm and collected even when she'd been on the verge of killing him, became a vicious creature.

She watched as he kicked out with both feet, catching Anne in her midsection, driving her backwards.  Her grip on him slackened and Oz fell to the ground, perched on all fours, ready to launch himself forward like a coiled spring.

He drove himself forward, his claws grabbing the red-haired vampire around her midsection, and the two fell to the ground, a heap of flailing limbs.  His claws tore at her cold flesh, drawing blood.  His teeth dug deep into her shoulder, tearing a large chunk of _something free._

Anne felt the claws tear into her, and she felt the blood of the vagrant she'd eaten a few hours before spilling out of her, and with it her strength.  She hadn't been prepared for Oz's attack.  He'd gambled that she wouldn't be able to handle his fierce, animal self, and for the moment, he'd won.  She needed to get away and recuperate.

Her car was parked on the street.  She could get away.

She brought her right fist, backhanded, to the side of Oz's head, just hard enough to daze him.  She didn't have time to kill him now, Dee was almost back on her feet, and there was no way she could take on a slayer when she was this badly injured.

She had an opening, and she ran.

Oz, somewhat drunkenly, picked himself up, and quickly scanned the parking lot.  Anne was gone, but Dee was near, and she looked wounded.

With a growl, he launched himself at her, only to be brought up short by a tranquilizer dart.

Anders lowered the tranquilizer gun, and quickly reloaded it in case the single dart hadn't quite done the trick.

From the street, they heard a car start up and drive away.

"She's getting away."  For a smart guy, Anders had a talent for stating the obvious.

Dee ran forward, grabbing the cross and the stake that Oz had dropped moments earlier.  She then dove into her car and started it up.

The fury in her voice was impossible to miss, "No, she isn't."


	13. Drive

Disclaimer: Not mine.  Belongs to Joss Whedon and ME.

With my sincerest apologies for not updating sooner.  I went and got a personal life in the last few weeks.

Chapter 13

Dee smoothly shifted from second to third and pushed the accelerator to the floor.  The engine even sounded angry as it adapted to a new gear ratio.  Anne's car was easy to pick out.  Her black car (it looked like a small Honda Civic) was the only one on the road moving faster than 80 mph.

Driving lessons weren't exactly part of slayer training, and Dee hoped that Anne hadn't ever taken the time to develop that part of her life.  During her time at UCLA, Dee had hooked up with a guy (what was his name again?  Carl, or something like that?), who'd had a thing for taking his car down to the tracks.  Dee's father had died only a few months before, and she'd basically given up on life.  Getting herself killed in a fiery accident had seemed at the time like a reasonable way to go.

Instead, she became a very proficient driver.  She guessed that the universe had a sense of humor.

Anne, she hoped, hadn't had similar training.

_She is _not_ getting away._

Her own words rang out again in her mind.

In a way, Anne was almost a darker side of Dee herself.  A personification of the evil she knew was never far beneath her cold exterior.

Her home was in Coronado, literally blocks from the Bay Bridge.  If Anne could make it there and into San Diego proper, there was no way in hell Dee would ever be able to find her.  Whatever Dee was going to do, it would have to happen on the bridge.

Anne turned on to Highway 75 without so much as bothering to pause for the red light.  Dee wasn't about to let her get away that easily, and she swerved after her, her car clinging tightly to the corners.  Ahead the traffic was relatively dense, but it was moving quickly.  Anne's black car was weaving recklessly from lane to lane, trying to put distance between herself and Dee's little Volkswagen.

_You are _not_ getting away._

The lightest of shudders pulsed through the car as she shifted again.

Dee's car squirted through a tiny space between two cars into the far left lane.  Fewer cars were in this lane and she had a more-or-less free straightaway.  The needle on her speedometer pushed just past 100 mph.

The freeway, for some reason, was surprisingly free of cops.  She figured that two high-performance cars weaving at 100 mph through traffic would attract some police attention.

She wasn't, however, about to complain about the lack of said attention.

_Worry about cops later, kill evil Vampire Slayer now._

She wasn't exactly sure where that comment came from.  It didn't exactly sound like her voice in her head.  It sounded flaky, a little ditzier than her own internal monologue.

Anders carefully heaved Oz's limp and very furry body into the back seat of his truck.  The dose of tranquilizer he'd received would put an elephant to sleep for a week.  Anders was fairly certain it would put Oz out of commission for the night, at least.

The truck wasn't seriously damaged.  A little body work and it would be back to normal, but for now, it would run about as well as it had before Oz had driven it full tilt through a strong garage door.  Hell, that was the kind of thing it was designed to survive.  Dee would need help.

Anders pulled out his cellular phone.

The cellphone on the seat next to Dee started ringing.

_Dammit__._

She picked it up and held it to her ear.  She knew who it probably was.  "Anders, what is it?  I'm in a high-speed chase here.  Idle chitchat isn't exactly the best idea right now."

"Where are you?"  Anders demanded.

"Highway 75.  We're on the bridge headed for San Diego."

"What are you going to do?"

"I'm gonna make her stop, then I'm gonna make her dead."  Even over the cellphone, even through the unmistakable strain in her voice as she struggled to keep control of her little car with one hand, the hard edge on her voice could still be heard.

"Shit."  Anders cursed under his breath as the line went dead.  If Anne made it to San Diego proper, she'd get away.  She could vanish in the maze of streets and back alleys and there would be no way that Dee could ever find her.

Which meant that Dee needed to stop her somehow _on_ the bridge.

Which meant that Dee was going to put herself in serious jeopardy.

He got in behind the wheel and pulled out of the garage.  Dee would need backup.

He had a feeling that wherever she and Anne stopped, they wouldn't be all that hard to find.

Anne seemed to be having more trouble than she was.  She seemed to be just barely in control of her vehicle, and was in fact slowing down significantly to keep from spinning out at over 100 mph.

The next time Anne's black Honda Civic bobbed out from the lane in front of Dee, it was a little closer.

Ignoring the surprised, and angry-sounding horn of the BMW behind her, Dee swerved into the middle lane, where she had a small space in which to accelerate flat-out, pulling up just behind and to the right of Anne's car.  Anne was in far left lane, right next to the thick concrete divider on the major highway.

Right now, Dee had a small opening in traffic.  No traffic in any of the lanes except for them.  She was going to have to do it here.

_Oh well,_ she thought to herself, _I _did_ really like this car._

She slammed her accelerator into the floor, practically begging the engine of her tiny car to turn out just a few more miles per hour.  She wrenched the wheel hard to her right, bringing her car into the far right lane.  She then spun the wheel as hard as she could to her left, silently hoping that she'd timed this right, silently praying that Anne didn't realize what she was doing.

Dee's front bumper connected with the black Civic just behind the front, passenger side tire with the force in the same ball park as your average freight train.  Dee never touched the brake pedal, allowing the impact to bring her car to an abrupt, brutal stop.

A sensor in Dee's car, detecting G-forces normally reserved for fighter pilots, dutifully ordered the airbag housed in Dee's steering wheel to inflate, quickly.  Even as the front axle of her car snapped with the ease of a matchstick, and the hood crumpled with the ease of tissue paper, a relatively soft bag inflated with the explosive force of a bomb, preventing her head from striking the far less yielding surface of her dashboard.  The front windshield shattered, raining broken glass down on her.

She felt the car spin as Anne's car, still imbued with a substantial quantity of forward momentum, pulled free of the collision, and finally came to rest about fifty feet down the street.  Finally skidding to a stop with all four wheels pointing in different directions.

_Ouch._  It felt like her right wrist was broken, but it felt like her legs were still in one piece, if very badly bruised.  She guessed that she probably had a concussion, and her neck felt wrong, somehow.  _I'm really gonna feel this in the morning._

Her car was clearly a write-off.  The hood which once stretched a good four feet in front of her now terminated less than a foot in front of the space the windscreen had once occupied.  She didn't want to guess where her front tires had ended up, but she imagined that they, too, were somewhere they weren't supposed to be.

Her legs were pinned under the steering wheel which had been driven by the force of the impact into her, but it felt like a little flexing of her super-duper slayer muscles would free her in short order.  At least her windshield had shattered, so finding a way out of the car shouldn't be too difficult.

Traffic had stopped, rather unsurprisingly.  They'd seen what looked like (and was, she supposed) a horrible accident, and had duly stopped.

Which meant that she had about four minutes before an ambulance was on the scene.  Probably less before the police showed up.

Which meant that she had to kill Anne _now._

It took a little brute strength to free the steering wheel from its mount.  Her wrist was definitely broken.  She couldn't put any strain on it at all.  Now that she was standing up, it also felt like her right ankle was sprained.  It was literally agonizing to put any weight on it at all.

Her ribs ached with every breath, and her abdomen was badly bruised and hard to the touch.  She was probably bleeding internally.

She forced herself to ignore the pain.  Anne wasn't going down without a fight, and Dee knew she couldn't let little things like broken bones or sprained ankles or imminent death slow her down.  It was a small miracle that she was conscious at all, much less on her feet.  Maybe there was something to this whole slayer-quick-healing thing.

She looked sadly at the twisted lump of metal which she wouldn't have been able to identify as her Volkswagen GTI had it not been for the fact that she'd just freed herself from its interior.  She _had_ really liked that car.  It had started burning.  Gas tanks, typically, didn't explode, but they would burn like crazy.

Anders pulled to a stop.  He had to, really.  The traffic in front of him had halted, and he couldn't go any further.  He also had a sneaking suspicion that he knew _why_ traffic had stopped.

He looked quickly at Oz.  He was still unconscious from the shot of etorphine hydrochloride he'd received, and he probably would be for the rest of the night.  Either way, it was probably best for Anders to make sure the doors were all locked.

He got out of the car, and started running up the shoulder of the road.

About a hundred yards down, he came upon the scene of the accident.  Dee was standing, and making her way towards a lump of metal which looked like it had once been a black car.  She had one arm cradled around her midsection and her right leg looked like it didn't much like to support weight.  But she was walking on it.  Her car (or at least, Anders assumed that it had once been her car) was consumed in flames.  Something had ignited her gas tank, and the flames had spread into the passenger compartment.  It was a good thing she had got out when she did.

She was making her way, grim determination on her face towards the car that Anders now assumed had been Anne's.  Clutched tightly in her right hand, she had the cross and the stake Oz had held what seemed like only moments ago.

The driver's side door of Anne's car snapped opened, and Anne rolled free of the driver's seat, looking nearly as heavily beaten up as Dee did.

Over the loud roar of the flames leaping out of Dee's car, Anders could only barely hear Anne's voice, floating like smoke over the San Diego bay.

"Now," She whispered, "Things get interresting."


	14. Resignation

Disclaimer:  Oz and the universe occupied by these characters are not mine, and belong to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy.  Dee, Anne and Anders are mine, however.  So lemme know what you think of 'em.

Chapter 14

_This is not going to be much fun._  Dee could only barely stand on her right leg, and even then, it took a colossal effort not to scream in agony.  Her right wrist, broken, would be useless for punching, but her right forearm was still in one piece, she could probably put up a decent defense with it.  She had hit her head pretty hard against something, and was still a little rocky on her feet.  She felt dizzy.  Probably at least a mild concussion.

A substantial crowd had formed around her.  They didn't really know what had happened, just that they'd seen what looked like (and probably was) a really bad accident, and that both people involved, by some impressive miracle, were exiting their cars under their own power.

Now, it looked to Dee as if they were about to watch one of those two people die.  Dee would have been willing to bet that it wasn't going to be Anne.

Anders, she knew, couldn't be far away, and he was probably armed with something pointy and wooden.  At the very least, she could hold Anne here long enough for Anders to staple her to something.

Yeah, right.

The only up side she could find here was that Anne looked like she'd fared a little worse in the accident than she had.  Her right arm looked like it was broken at the humerus, and it hung uselessly from her shoulder.  In essence, she had one side from which she could launch no attack, and mount no defense.  Luckily enough, it happened to be the same side from which Dee _could_ mount an attack.

She quietly tucked the cross and the stake she held in her hand into the back of her waistband.  She needed to hang on to them, but she would have to beat Anne up a little bit before she could actually use them.

Anders stood, riveted to the black asphalt of the six-lane highway.  Traffic was completely stopped, giving the two women a large, open arena.  He watched the two horribly injured women inch towards each other.  Each watching the other's arms, waiting for the first strike.  Neither had anywhere to run to, even if they could run (and looking at their injuries, Anders seriously doubted that they could).

No, they were going to fight until one of them stopped fighting back.

He watched the weary warriors circle each other, his mind screaming to help Dee, but knowing deep down that there wasn't a damn thing that he could do.

It was up to her now.

_Okay, __Dee__.  Lead with your head.  And that doesn't mean letting Anne use it as a punching bag.  Anne had her left fist balled up, and she moved with remarkable smoothness, considering her injuries.  Dee's ankle was still screaming a protest every time she stood on it.  She pushed the pain aside.  _Concentrate on what you need to do.  There'll be lots of time to hurt later.__

She dropped as smoothly as she could manage into a left stance.  Her hands raised in a traditional _Bak__ Fu Pai guard, keeping her eyes centered upon Anne's midsection as she matched her move._

_Watch her waist.  With any attack, that needs to move first.  With practice, you'll be able to predict any strike by the way the _dantien_ moves.  Anders voice rang out from the back of her mind.  She was sure he had to be in the gathering crowd somewhere, but she didn't dare look to find out where, lest she give Anne an opening._

_Why the hell are the cops not here yet?_  She looked at the grievously injured vampire in front of her, _then again, what would they do to her?  Shoot her?_

Slowly, the two circled each other, their unblinking eyes riveted upon each other.  Each one waiting for the other to make the first move.

Dee grew impatient and launched a vicious sidekick aimed at the vampire's forehead.

Anne sidestepped it effortlessly, bringing her left forearm up in a perfect inside block, connecting viciously with Dee's leg, further aggravating the previous injury to her ankle.  Dee gritted her teeth against the pain, as it burned like fire up her leg.  The vampire, now standing behind the slayer, where Dee could not reach her, followed it up with a snap kick aimed between her shoulder blades.  Before Dee could react, the vampire threw second kick at the side of Dee's left knee, which buckled under the impact.  Finally, bringing her left leg to the ground she spun around in a vicious roundhouse kick which caught the prone slayer on the side of her head

Dee's back smacked painfully into the warm asphalt.  _Ouch._

"You really have to learn the value of patience."  Anne's voice punched its way through Dee's pain-clouded senses.

_Cocky bitch,_ Dee thought to herself.  Everything hurt.  She hefted herself up on her elbows, looking up at the monster above her.  Anne hadn't even bothered to put on her game face.  As if Dee wasn't worth the trouble.

"Drop something?"  Anne held the stake and the cross Dee had tucked into her waistband only moments ago.  She paid no notice to the steam curling up between her fingers.  "You were going to use these on li'l ol' me?  I'm afraid I'm going to have to do something about that."  Anne flicked her wrist, sending both articles flying.  Dee didn't see where they landed, but she figured it was safe to say that they no longer were a factor in this fight.

Dee realized she was outclassed, and horribly so.  Anne had her strength and her training, plus five years of experience.

_Okay, I guess this is it.  At least I can say I went out fighting._

"_You're_ the slayer?"  Anne was still talking.  The bitch really needed to learn how to shut up.  "Somehow I expected more."

"I think you'll find I'm full of surprises."  Dee kicked out with her right foot, catching Anne off-guard in the lower abdomen.  It wasn't as effective against someone who didn't actually breathe, but the force of the blow made the vampire band over.  Ignoring the inevitable bolt of pain from her ankle, she followed it up with a left kick under Anne's chin, sending her tumbling backwards.

Dee took the fraction of a second she had to perform an elegant handspring to her feet.

Anders watched helplessly as Dee was brutally pummeled by the larger, stronger vampire.  In fairness to her, she was doing quite well, but Anne was simply beating her.

And he could see in her eyes that Dee had given up.

She knew that she was going to lose, but was determined to go down fighting.

Oz had once told him that every slayer had a death wish.  They spent so much time knowing that they had death hunting them down, sooner or later, they wanted it.  Dee had come into the game wanting death.  She climbed sheer rock walls with no ropes, she drove high-performance cars at 100 miles per hour.  And that was before she assumed the mantle of slayer.  Now she was taking on a vampire she knew she couldn't beat.

Anders had never felt so helpless in his life.  He had no weapons, and even if he did, there wasn't much he could do about Anne.  She was holding her ground against a slayer.  There was no way he could do anything to stop her.

Dee couldn't hold her ground anymore.  Anne was both larger and stronger.  She had five years of experience as a slayer.

And Dee had no weapons.  As Anne landed a sidekick in the center of her chest, as she was propelled backwards to land hard on the road, she knew she wouldn't be getting up again.  She knew it was over at that moment.  She had no fight left, and nothing to fight for.

She lay on the asphalt, feeling as though her ribcage had been crushed (which, with some degree of probability, it had), watching the redhead walk methodically towards her.

Anders saw the vampire kneel on Dee's chest, pulling her one good arm back in a punch which would crush the slayer's head against the unyielding road in a manner not unlike that of an eggshell.  Apparently Anne had decided that Dee wasn't worth keeping alive.  He had watched her fight for five years, and now he could see in her eyes that she had made the decision to go for the kill.

Dee looked up at the vampire kneeling over her, and found herself wondering, idly, what the next slayer would be like.  She made no effort to defend herself, or to push the vampire off of her.  She knew that death was coming as soon as that fist dropped, but strangely enough the thought didn't inspire the fear she thought it would.  She just wanted it to be over.

"Say 'hi' to your dad for me."  Anne's voice was hard in her ears, and it echoed nastily back and forth inside her head.

Hard darkness pressed in on her before she saw the vampire's fist drop.

Anders screamed in angry denial as he watched Anne drive her fist mercilessly down at the slayer's calm, welcoming face.


	15. Guilt

Disclaimer:  The universe these characters inhabit is not mine.  It belongs to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy.  I'm just borrowing it for a little while to have a few of my characters run around in it.

Chapter 15:

Darkness.

"Dee, wake up."

_Don' wanna._

"Dee, it's time for you to get up now."

_Go 'way._

"Pumpkin?  There's someone you need to see."

_Tell 'em I'm dead, call back later._

"C'mon, Dee.  Up 'n' at 'em."

_Daddy?_

"That's right, Dee.  Now open your eyes."

The light the pushed its way into her eyes as her eyelids lifted was bright, but not harsh.  It was warm and comforting.

_Daddy, is that you?_

"What do you think?"

_I think you're probably not going to tell me one way or the other._

Her father, or what looked like him, smiled, "If I said 'yes,' what would you say?"

_I'd say: "bullshit, I'm dreaming."_

"That's my girl."

_So, what is this?  "This is your Afterlife?"_

"You're not dead yet."

_Yet?_

"Nope.  You've got quite a few years yet."

_Couldn't be a little more specific, could you?_

"And take the fun out of life?"

_So, why am I here?  For that matter, why are _you_ here?_

"It's your brain we're in right now.  You tell me."

_I guess…  I don't know, really._

"I suppose you could call me a guide.  I've got something that you really need to see."  He waved a hand.

_Daddy?_  Something was changing.  The white light was taking on a definite form walls, windows, a single bed, some chairs.

"Shush, it's okay."  His voice was soft, soothing.  "You need to see this."

She inched closer to him, trying to take comfort in him.  The walls became a bland beige, and the form of a man laying on the bed, face up with his eyes closed began to take shape.  The Venetian blinds over the window sent long shafts of light shining down on the bed.  Outside, it looked like late spring, or early summer.  Sitting next to the man, holding his hand, appeared the form of a young woman with dark hair.

Tears flowed freely from Dee's eyes now, _Daddy, no.  Don't make me watch this again, _she pleaded.

"I have to, Pumpkin.  You have to see.  You need to understand."

_I've seen this show before._

"But you missed the point."

"Daddy, how are you?"  The young woman spoke.  The voice was Dee's, but it was younger, stronger.  The ECG machine beeped rhythmically in the background.

"I'm dying, Dee."  Her father's voice was weak.  His health had been progressively declining ever since he'd been diagnosed with leukemia, and the disease was starting to win.

"No, daddy, no.  They'll find a donor.  I know they will."  Dee's own tests had turned up a negative match for a bone-marrow transplant, as had her sister's.  Now they were looking in the unrelated bone marrow registry.

"No, Dee, they won't."  The weakened voice was gentle, but firm.  "I know it, the doctors know it, and deep down, you know it too."

"Don't say that!"  The nineteen-year old Dee started crying, the twenty-six year old Dee was crying harder.

"Dee, I have three months, if that."  He told her, "And by then, what they bury won't be me anymore, and you know it."

"Daddy…"

"Dee, they'll spend the next three months poisoning me to within an inch of my life, hoping that it kills the cancer cells off before it kills me."  He weakly raised his right hand, resting it gently on his daughter's cheek.  The plastic cup over his index finger which read his heart rate gently brushed a lock of hair away from her eyes.  "Dee, it's over."

_Daddy, _please_ don't make me watch the rest.  Dee pressed her face hard into the apparition of her father's shoulder.  He felt solid enough, anyway._

He gently pushed her away from him, and turned her to face the bed again, "you have to, Dee.  You have to understand."

"Dee, I watched my father die this way.  I'm not going to go through that, and I'm not going to put you through that."

In a motion which seemed impossibly smooth for one so weak, he gently slipped the heart sensor off of his index finger and onto his daughter's.

The ECG machine groaned slightly as it detected what appeared to be a slight arrhythmia in the heartbeat, but the machine almost visibly settled down as the heartbeat returned to normal.

The teenager looked down at the sensor on her finger, then over at the ECG machine, beeping rhythmically, strongly, oblivious to the weakened state of her father.  A look of horrified realization spread across her face as the picture finally slid into focus.

"Daddy… no.  No.  _NO!"  The nineteen year old shook her head in vehement denial.  The heart rate measured by the ECG accelerated to a furious pace._

"Shh, Dee.  It's okay."  He rested his hand gently on hers, "You have to let me go."

"No, Daddy, no."  Both Dees were whimpering uncontrolably.

"You have to, Dee.  Listen to me: the IV there is a morphine drip.  The rate is controlled by that valve near the top.  You open that all the way, and I'll fall asleep and my heart will stop."

"No, Daddy."

"Dee, _listen.  I won't let you watch me slowly turn into a living corpse.  You have to be strong, Dee.  I need you to be strong."_

"I can't do this alone, Daddy."

"Yes, Dee, you can.  You're gonna grow up to be an incredible woman.  You're going to make your father proud."  His hand again came to rest on her cheek, gently brushing the tears away from her eye.  "You take care of yourself.  You have a good life, you hear me?"

"Daddy, don't talk like that."

"Dee," his voice was infinitely gentle, "It's over."

"No."

"Yes, Dee.  The doctors can't save me, but you can."

"No!"

"Dee, you know I'm right about this."  He paused, "I'm asking you to do this for me."

Dee watched herself take in a long, shaky breath, and nod quietly to her father.  Then slowly, deliberately, she opened the valve, allowing the morphine to flow freely into her father's veins.  She listened to his breathing slow, she felt his pulse slowly weaken under her hands.  Her eyes never strayed from his face even after his eyes closed and he could no longer see her.

The ECG machine pinged out her heart beating steadily, unwaveringly as his own slowed to a stop.

_God dammit, why are you making me see this again!?_

"Because you need to see it again.  You've been carrying the guilt for this moment around since you were nineteen.  It's time to let it go."

_I'm here because I feel guilty!?  You just watched me kill my own father, how the fuck am I supposed to feel!?_

"Like you did the right thing.  Like you made a choice you can be proud of."

_He died thinking I hated him enough to kill him._

"He died knowing you loved him enough to let him go."

_I killed him._

"Death comes to all of us.  This was his time."

_I _made_ this his time._

"No, you _let_ it be his time."

_I killed him._

"Did you love him?"

_Of course I did._

"Then let it go."  The apparition of her father placed a hand on her cheek, exactly where her father had all those years ago, "He would want you to let it go."

_I don't know how._

He smiled, "You have so much love in you, but nobody ever gets to see it because you keep it buried under all that guilt.  It's time to live again, Dee."

_How?  If I'm not dead now, I will be in a second._

"You're not dead yet.  Whether you are in a second, well, that's up to you.  Choose life, or choose death.  But don't choose either one for a man who died when you were a teenager."

The apparition snapped his fingers, and instantly the room, her younger self, her dying father and the apparition vanished.

She was back, lying on the street, with Anne pinning her down, ready to bring the final, killing blow down into Dee's skull.

"So tell me now," Anne taunted, "what made you think you could win this?  What is it you think you have that I don't?"

Then, ruthlessly, she drove her fist at Dee's head.


	16. Chosen

Disclaimer:  Buffy and the universe she inhabits belong to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy.  Dee is mine.  At least the Dee that wasn't shown during the ten seconds of screen time she got in _Chosen._

Chapter 16:

"So tell me now," Anne taunted, "what made you think you could win this?  What is it you think you have that I don't?" 

Then, ruthlessly, she drove her fist at Dee's head.

Dee saw the vicious blow descending inexorably towards her head with a force sufficient to flatten her skull against the pavement in painfully slow motion.  Knowing in her mind that if it landed, it would all be over.  Bye-bye, Slayer.  Next, please.

_Choose life, or choose death._

_Choose._

The fist descended smoothly, unhesitatingly at her.  She could see the faint orange glow of her car, burning off to her right.  Distantly, she heard a familiar voice scream "Dee!"

_Whaddaya__ know?  Anders made it._

_Choose._

In a fraction of a second, it would be over, or she would be in the fight of her life.

_Choose._

The sound of Anne's fist striking the palm of Dee's left hand was deafening, her muscles screamed as she brought its relentless descent to a halt, inches from the bridge of her nose.

Dee felt a wave of ecstasy rush over her body.  It was like being bathed in warmth, like being suspended on a beam of light which swept over her, knitting her broken bones, repairing her abused limbs, and stopping the bleeding.

For a moment, Anne stared at her, uncertain of what, exactly had just happened.

Almost casually, Dee pulled Anne's fist aside, away from her face.  She looked, almost quizzically into Anne's eyes.

_What is it you think you have that I don't?_

"How about a pulse, for starters?"

Her right fist slammed into the vampire's left cheekbone, driving the ex-slayer back.

Anne brought her hand up to her cheek, rather stunned that what should have been a challenging, but not difficult, kill had decided to fight back.

Dee had changed.  As she sprang to her feet, she stood taller, more confidently.  Her stance was perfect and her hands did not so much as shake as she brought them up into a guard position.  Her motions were smooth and effortless, showing none of the pain which had been all too evident only moments ago.

"Funny the things we learn when we get older."  Dee said, as she waited for the redhead to recover and prepare for the inevitable conflict, "when we're young, we don't realize that there's a point when we're supposed to give up."

Anne launched a brutal series of kicking attacks.  Dee sidestepped them effortlessly, bringing her own left foot up in a snap-kick which caught the vampire under her jaw, making her head snap backwards brutally, and would have broken the neck of any living human.  She then shifted her weight onto her left foot, bringing her right up in a side kick to Anne's abdomen, driving the vampire backwards.

"You may have a slayer's strength," Dee blocked a snap kick which was aimed at her head, but did not make any attack for her part, "you definitely have a slayer's training," Anne's left fist whistled past Dee's right ear as she snapped her head smoothly to the left, out of the way.  Again, Dee made no response to the attack.

Anne threw another side kick, aimed to throw the slayer off balance, give her back the upper hand in this fight.

"But you're not the slayer.  Maybe you never were."  Dee twisted smoothly away from Anne's kick, and easily blocked the punch she threw with her only remaining good hand.

"I am."  Dee drove a brutal palm strike under Anne's chin, again snapping her head backwards, lifting the vampire off her feet, and depositing her about ten feet away on the hard asphalt.  Dee paused for a moment, allowing the truth of her own words to sink in.

"Shut up!"  Anne screamed at her, as she found her feet again.

Dee shook her head, "Being a slayer isn't about strength or skill or weapons.  It's not about what we can do, or how many vampires we can kill.  It's not even about whether we make a difference."

She deflected another punch, then spun around, weaving the fingers of her hands and driving them into the vampire's stomach.  Anne bent over, reflexively, and received the two hands brutally in the bridge of her nose.

"It's about spirit."

Anne looked at the slayer, knowing in that instant that she was beaten.

"It's about fighting, no matter the odds.  It's about not giving up.  It's about accepting your past, and living for the future."  Dee paused, "I don't know what made you give up on that, but in that instant, you went against everything a slayer is supposed to stand for."

"Stop preaching.  It's lost on me."  Anne muttered at her.  The defiance behind her eyes was unmistakable.

"Maybe I'm not saying this for your benefit."  Dee's voice was steady, calm.  "Maybe it's something I needed to realize for myself."

Dee had never fought like this in any of her training sessions, Anders realized, with no small degree of shock.  She was speaking to Anne, but she was speaking too quietly for him to hear what she was saying.

She fought with a smoothness and a confidence which he'd never seen in her before.  Her blocks were perfectly timed, and well placed.  Her strikes were accurate and deadly.  In an instant, something had changed with Dee.  Anders realized, though he didn't know exactly how he realized it, exactly what it was.

Dee had become a slayer.

Thirteen years ago, Dee had been given the skill, the strength and the speed of a slayer, but she'd never been a slayer until that instant.

He realized, also, that whatever had changed in her was something Anne had never had.

Anne had a slayer's strength, and a slayer's training, and five years of experience that Dee didn't have.

And Anne was getting her ass kicked.

"It's over, Anne," Dee whispered, her words mimicking her father's, as she effortlessly redirected a series of punches and kicks, "You know you can't win this."

"Shut up!"

"You've lost."

"_Shut UP!_"  Anne launched another series of attacks at the untouchable slayer.  She had given up trying to be elegant or skillful.  Throw as many different blows as possible, and something was bound to hit her eventually.

Dee didn't even bother blocking anymore.  She simply sidestepped each attack.  She responded with a single punch across Anne's jaw.  She put a little more muscle behind this one, hoping that would get the message across.

Anne looked at her for a moment, in stunned shock.  She knew that she was beaten.  She couldn't touch Dee.  It was over.

She spun around, and raced for the railing of the bridge.  Then, in a smooth motion, she dove over it.

Dee didn't move, allowing the vampire to escape.  She remained on guard until she heard the distant splash as the vampire's cold body struck the water.

Her car was still burning, no more than ten feet away from her.  She couldn't feel its warmth.  She felt numb.

Finally, she stepped out of her stance, bringing her feet together, and quietly bowed at the section of railing over which the vampire had disappeared.

"Thanks, Daddy."  She whispered, knowing that no living person was close enough to hear her.

Then, the physical and emotional stresses caught up with her, and she collapsed to the ground, her face slamming ungracefully into the warm road.

"Dee."  He heard Anders voice as she felt him roll her onto her back, cradling her limp body in his arms.

"Tell Oz," she whispered, barely able to form sound at all, "that he owes me a new car."

Then hard darkness pressed in, blocking out any response Anders might have had.


	17. Beginnings

Disclaimer: See Chapter 1.

Chapter 17:

Dee was abnormally silent when she stepped into Oz's office the next morning.

"So," Oz started as she sat down, "how was your night?"

Dee arched her eyebrows at him, but said nothing.

"Anders tells me you managed to fight Anne off."  Oz continued when Dee defiantly refused to contribute.

"She'll be back."  Dee whispered.

Oz nodded, "Are you okay?"

"I've been better."  Dee replied.

"I guess I can believe that."

There was a long, uncomfortable silence before Oz spoke again.

"So, am I going to have to find a new programmer?"

A month ago, Dee would have felt honor-bound to make Oz squirm a little, see how uncomfortable she could make him.  But she was past that now.  She shook her head.  "I came into this slayer thing thinking it was just another job.  Like being a cop.  It was something I could do, then quit any time.  It's not like that, is it?"

Oz shook his head, sadly.  "It's not something you do, it's who you are.  But now, at least you don't have to be that person alone."

"Oz, what I said last night, about Willow…"

Oz raised a hand, cutting her off, "it's okay."

"Are we?  Okay, I mean?"

He nodded, "we're okay."

Dee was silent again, there was apparently something she found absolutely fascinating about the section of carpeting just in front of her chair.

"Um, Oz?"

"Yes?"

"What am I doing not in jail?  Or worse, in the papers?  You'd think that a bad car crash, followed by something out of a Jackie Chan movie, and a swan dive off the bridge would attract at least a little media and police attention."

Oz shrugged, "let's just say that we've secured the services of a major law-firm in Los Angeles.  They managed to keep your face out of the papers, and you out from behind bars."

"Oh."  Dee couldn't help but wonder just how much power these guys had.

"Speaking of which, come with me to the garage."

"So, tell me," Dee looked at the beautiful shining silver car parked in the garage, "do you give all of your slayers a $35,000 car?"

Oz shook his head, "it _was_ a $35,000 car" he said, running his fingers along the smooth lines of the Honda S2000 "before they made the mistake of handing it to a bright young woman named Fred and told her to make sure it was running okay.  Now the best estimate anyone has is that it's worth over $200,000."  He allowed himself a small smile.

"What did they _do_ to it?"

"Well, among other things, they added a false bottom to the trunk, and a compartment under the passenger seat.  The one in the trunk is set to hold a couple of battle axes, a sword or two, a pair of Wakizashi, which I hear you've taken a shining to, and if you cram, a crossbow or two.  Under the seat, you can fit a few knives, a couple of stakes.  Some of the smaller weapons."  He paused, indicating her hairdo, "although I hear you wear your weapon of choice pretty much all the time these days."

Dee brought her hand up to the pair of blackwood chopsticks she had holding her raven-hued hair in a tight bun, and shrugged "what better place to hide a weapon, than in plain sight?"

Oz smiled, "Well, technically, the car isn't yours.  It's been generously donated by the law firm of Wolfram and Hart, to assist in what they call the charity work we do here.  They get some kind of tax break out of it."

"Is this some kind of incentive for me to stay around?"

Oz threw the keys to her, "do you need one?"

Dee looked down at the keys in her hand.  This, she knew, was the point of decision.  From here, there was no turning back.  She took those keys, and she took a place on the front lines in a war which could cost her dearly.

Slowly, she closed her hand around the keys, and placed them in her pocket.

Oz nodded, as if he had known all along that she would remain, "welcome to the team," he whispered.

It was nearing ten o'clock when Dee finally stepped into her apartment.  She'd needed some time to really absorb everything she'd seen and done over the last couple of days, and driving had always had a way of clearing her mind.  That Fred person had done a hell of a job on that car.  She could get used to driving a convertible around San Diego.  It didn't quite have all the little idiosyncrasies that her old Volkswagen GTI had had, but it could grow on her.

She sat down, tired, on her bed and looked at the clock.  It wasn't too late for a call to L.A., and she knew she would still be up.

Her heart was pounding as she dialed.

"Hello, Betsy?"  Dee paused for a moment, "Mom?  It's Dee."

It was time to start the healing process.

The End.

Author's note:  I have no intention of abandoning the characters I developed here, Dee, Anne, or Anders, so you can probably expect to see them crop up again sometime soon.  As far as I can tell, this fic was pretty well-liked by those who read it, something which pleases me to no end.  A quick thanks to those who read, and a huge thanks to those who took the time to review.


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